One of the scare tactics repeatedly made by opponents to re-starting Palm Lane Elementary School is that most of the current students will be not able to attend after conversion to charter status. It’s part of the general attack theme from charter opponents that such schools are elitist and won’t actually help those they purport to help. Like other misrepresentations being bandied about by charter opponents, this one is completely false, per state law:
5 CCR § 4800.3§ 4800.3. Requirement to Serve All Pupils.
Every pupil that attended a subject school prior to the implementation of an intervention shall continue to be enrolled in the school during and after an intervention is implemented pursuant to Education Code section 53300, unless the parent or legal guardian of the pupil chooses to enroll the pupil in another school or the school is closed. In addition, any pupil who resides in the attendance area of the subject school during or after the implementation of an intervention has a right to attend the school, subject to any laws or rules pertaining to enrollment.
Not that opponents of the Palm Lane charter re-start effort will stop making this untrue claim, but at least we can correct this deception on the record.
I’m not sure who is spreading this myth. I was at the teachers union meeting for parents last week and the union person was asked about this by a parent who was concerned that her daughter might be excluded. They said very clearly that the law would prohibit that, and also that the district could not force a child to go to a charter and would have to provide an alternative if she felt the new charter wasn’t a good fit. But they were very clear that she did not need to worry about her daughter not being eligible to attend. When pushed they did say that some charters had been accused of excluding special ed kids in the past but there are good charters and bad charters and they didn’t want to speculate on charters that hadn’t even been named yet.
In Adelanto last year, several teachers at the Desert Trails Academy charter have claimed that they were told directly by administration not to tell parents about special needs testing and services that are legally required to be provided by the State. Instead, they were directed to send all parents making these types of inquiries to talk to the administration instead. They were then dissuaded from leaving their children at the school. These teachers have gone on record about this, and unfortunately about half of the staff has since left the school.
http://capitalandmain.com/adelanto-report-card-year-zero-of-the-parent-trigger-revolution/
Earlier, parents has demanded that their signatures be removed from the Adelanto petition once they found out some claims about the school were false- they even sued to remove their names. A judge however ruled that signatures gathered in ignorance cannot later be removed.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/24/local/la-me-parent-trigger-20120724
The reason why takeover advocates do not tell the truth during petition-gathering campaigns is because it would be impossible to get parents to sign otherwise. You see, these operators know that once you’ve signed, whether in ignorance or under dubious or even duplicitous circumstances, you can’t take it back.
How else could they get you to sell out your local school, your local teachers, and all the parent groups who have worked so hard each day at Palm Lane?!!
Ed, can you please provide an example of where these Palm Lane Elementary parents “do not tell the truth”? The allegations leveled against these parents by teachers union staff and activists have leveled a number of false allegations against them – promises of free iPads and tutoring as inducements to sign, for example. When can we look forward to CTA reps criticizing instances like teachers telling their students to they will lose their jobs if Palm Lane becomes a charter school?
Why is the CTA so terrified of charter schools?
Also, Ed, “Capital and Main” is a left-wing advocacy blog and hardly an unbiased. While bias can be accounted for and filtered, Capital and main isn’t even accurate: in the second paragraph of the article you cite, it states: “Though funded by tax dollars, the trigger charter is private…” That is simply not true. Charter schools are public schools. They are a different kind of public school, but public schools nonetheless. Saying they are private is a deliberate misrepresentation.
They are usually Public traded companies, that are run for profit. They have a profit motive and shareholders to impress. There model is to hire very inexperienced teachers for far less pay, no benefits, take that extra $ and give the administrators and board the bulk of that money.