Palm Lane Elementary parents will hold a press conference on Friday about their decision to go to court to secure their rights under the Parent Empowerment Act, which they have been attempting to exercise in an attempt to re-start their children’s school as an independent public charter school. Their effort to secure a better education for their kids and future Palm Lane students has been fought by the Anaheim City School District and the school employee unions every step of the way. It should be clear to all but the deliberately blind that ACSD Superintendent Linda Wagner and the Board of Education are purposely obstructing the parent trigger process.
This obstructionism has been particularly ham-fisted since the ACSD Board of Education rejected the Palm Lane parent group’s parent trigger petition on February 19. In such a case, state law gives petitioners 60 days to correct deficiencies in the petition. The district could have quickly and easily furnished the parents with the information they needed; instead, the ACSD has contentiously dragged its feet in a bald attempt to run out the clock on the petitioners. It’s bureaucracy run amok.
This excerpt from the writ of mandate filed by the palm Lane parents’ attorneys illustrates:
First, despite the legal mandate that the District provide parents detailed information supporting its decision not to accept the Petition, the District has instead purposefully withheld those details, either in an attempt to delay the determination that Parent Empowerment Act’s legal requirements have already been met, or to deprive the parents of their right to correct and resubmit the Petition so as to meet them. On February 19, 2015, the District announced its denial of the parents’ Petition. The District claimed that of the 488 students represented in the Petition, only 355 students were associated with petitions the District had verified to be valid. The District rejected petitions associated with the remaining 133 students represented by the Petition on the basis that the signatures were “invalid” or “unverifiable,” leaving parents a mere 12 students short of the 367 the District claimed would constitute 50% of the students at Palm Lane on the submission date. Critically, because many of those who signed petitions in support of this effort are parents to multiple students attending Palm Lane, the number of signatures needed to reach the 50% -of-all students threshold could actually be far fewer than 12.
The District substantiated its decision with only vague descriptions of categories of petitions it deemed invalid. Information as to which petitions were allegedly insufficient and on what bases they were deemed to be so was withheld, leaving parents at a loss as to how to remedy any alleged defects. Parents have repeatedly sought to obtain complete information about which allegedly invalid petitions must be cured and why; yet the District continues to withhold a full explanation for its rejections. The statutory scheme provides parents with only 60 days, or until April 20, 2015, to correct invalid petitions and re-submit the Petition to the District. On March 24, 2015, counsel for Petitioners for the first time received what the District had its possession all along, a complete list of the 133 rejected petitions. And yet the list—provided more than 30 days in to the 60-day resubmission period— still contained no explanation as to why each of the names listed was rejected. The District’s refusal to provide parents with this crucial (yet readily-available) information needed to cure is in direct contravention of its statutory duty. This refusal has left has left parents with no adequate remedy but to seek assistance from the Court.
Click on the links to see the writ of mandate and memorandum of points and authorities.
The Anaheim City School District had the information the petitioners needed – and had a legal right to — in its possession all along. It could have provided that information the day after the Board of Education rejected the petition. The district simply chose not to. Instead, it sat on the information until half of the 60-day correction period had elapsed in order to put the parents group squarely behind the 8-ball.
Where were the elected members of the ACSD Board of Education when their constituents were being stonewalled and obstructed by the public agency that – in theory, at least — works for those constituents? Nowhere, apparently.
From the press release sent this morning to Anaheim Blog:
Palm Lane Parents File for Court Intervention to Ensure their Parent Trigger Petition is Upheld in Anaheim—Challenge Anaheim City School District for Refusal to Follow the Parent Empowerment Act
Anaheim, CA—Parents at Palm Lane Elementary School filed for court intervention at the Orange County Superior Court to ensure that their rights to use the Parent Trigger law to transform their chronically underperforming school into a public charter School is not obstructed.
Parents and supporters will hold a press conference to announce the filing of the Writ of Mandate and Cross-Complaint against the Anaheim City School District and the Board of Education for rejecting the parent signatures submitted in their Parent Trigger petitions last February. The press conference will take place at 9:00am on April 24th at Palm Lane Park, located at 1595 W. Palais Road, in Anaheim, California
With the support of the California Center for Parent Empowerment Founder Senator Gloria Romero (Ret.), Founder of Excellent Educational Solutions and lead organizer in Adelanto’s Desert Trails Elementary Parent Trigger campaign Alfonso Flores, and members of the legal team, the parents have moved their fight to Orange County Superior Court for determination on their right to use the law without obstruction.
District leaders and the school employee unions will undoubtedly bemoan how “divisive” this parent trigger law drive has become – which is akin to lighting a fire and then complaining about the smoke and heat. The source of the division has been the adversarial stance of the school district and the misinformation and scare tactics employed by the school employees unions. The option of simply allowing these parents to exercise their rights on the Parent Empowerment Act and letting the chips fall where they may doesn’t seem to have occurred to them.
I hope justice prevails and these parents win, this reads like this is happening in some 3rd world socialist country. The School has been failing for years, all these parents want is a chance to clean house and get some good teachers in and give their kids a chance to succeed. They School district should have fought this hard for the parents and kids they serve instead of fighting against them.
Just for everyone’s convenience, here’s the real history of the Parent Trigger.
http://dianeravitch.net/2015/01/08/the-story-of-the-parent-trigger-an-education-fad-that-failed/
Diane Ravitch is hardly an objective source on this issue, and the post you link to is more an attack on Parent Revolution than anything else.
Diane Ravitch, a noted author, researcher, and educational historian, was not the source of the text referred to. The purpose of Parent Revolution and Romero’s latest organization is the same:
Parent Revolution: “To transform underperforming public schools by empowering parents.”
The California Center for Parent Empowerment: “To empower public school parents.”
Parental empowerment has nothing to do with helping students with low achievement become successful in school and in life. These movements are only about power–and the reason why student achievement in charter schools is usually no better than it is in public schools.
I agree that the School District needs to give those parents the information needed to cure the deficiencies in the petitions, no government agency has the right to withhold information from their constituents. Is that not correct, Matt?
Now to play Devil’s advocate, and suggest the parents go find 12 more parents who had not signed the petitions and boost the numbers to qualify which moves things forward while they simultaneously bust the District for failing to comply with the law.
I admit I still don’t fully understand how a Charter School is going to fix the fact that the numbers of students who appear to not pass the English proficiency exams appear to be exactly in line with those students who do not speak English at home, and that is not a deficiency in the teachers or the system. But if this is what the parents want, they need not explain it to me. It’s their school. As a taxpayer I am still interested in how my money is spent, and the Charter school hoping to operate the location DOES owe us explanations before they are selected. How do they intend to overcome a problem that is rooted in language spoken at home, which is often fixed over time simply through immersion in an English speaking population?
I need to buy a lottery ticket…I’m agreeing with a post by Cynthia Ward.
S o P, try not to think about it. Rumor has it the last time you agreed with me you developed a migraine that left you with a nervous twitch over your left eye for a week. Agreeing with Cynthia Ward can sometimes become a chronic condition, and we wouldn’t want THAT to happen around here. You try to have a good weekend anyway.