(a) The Superintendent of Public Instruction may enter into an interagency agreement with a consortium of two or more school districts to establish an academy of visual and performing arts to operate specialized secondary school programs in visual and performing arts that are conducted outside the regular schoolday, subject to this chapter.

(b) The governing boards of any two or more school districts or county offices of education may enter into the consortium described in subdivision (a). The academy established by this section shall be governed, subject to the interagency agreement provided for by subdivision (a), by a five-member governing board which shall be made up of 3 members representing the consortium who shall be superintendents or their designees of school districts or county offices of education with the largest student participation; and two members appointed by the Foundation for the Academy of Performing and Visual Arts. The authority of the board to operate the academy shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

(1) The appointment of a director to develop and administer the academy and the specialized secondary school programs operated by the academy.

(2) The execution of an agreement with any urban campus of a college or university with a means for assisting in the development of similar programs at other campuses or universities on a statewide basis, for the use of the educational resources of that campus for the purposes of this section.

(3) Responsibility over the fiscal accountability of the academy.

(c) For the purposes of subdivision (e) of Section 46300, the off-campus participation, by a pupil in any of the grades 9 to 12, inclusive, in any program of visual or performing arts operated under this section may be authorized as an independent study program in accordance with Article 5.5 (commencing with Section 51745) of Chapter 5 of Part 28. In no event shall a pupil concurrently enrolled in an independent study program and in a regular comprehensive high school or junior high school generate, for the purposes of Section 46300, more than one unit of average daily attendance per school year.

(Added by Stats. 1986, Ch. 1315, Sec. 1.)