State school board approves ‘parent trigger’ rules Learning Process

State school board approves ‘parent trigger’ rules

Written on July 13, 2011 – 2:42 pm | by Justin Fraser

The State Board of Education tentatively approved rules Wednesday to help parents of students at low-performing schools to fire principals and teachers or transform the schools into charters.

The regulations would fill in the gaps of the controversial “parent trigger” law signed last year by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after barely passing the Legislature. The law allows parents to demand one of four school overhaul options if a majority of parents at the school or from feeder schools petition for the change.

“It’s a huge victory for parents in California,” said the law’s author, former state Sen. Gloria Romero of Los Angeles. “The board realized we would not be denied.”

The main parent advocacy group, Parent Revolution, had concerns that Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent appointees to the board might side with the powerful California Teachers Association. During negotiations over the rules, the union wanted a petition seeking a charter conversion to earn approval from a majority of teachers.

That change was not included in the rules approved Wednesday.

Drawing loud cheers Wednesday from an overflowing crowd of Los Angeles-area parents, Romero insisted that parents shouldn’t need “permission slips” from teachers.

The nine-member board ultimately voted unanimously to provide a final 15-day comment period. If substantial comments are received, the board will have to reaffirm its vote in September. But board President Michael Kirst said it was unlikely that any additional changes would be made.

Parents at McKinley Elementary School in the Compton Unified School District were the first to test the law last year. But they failed to record the date of some signatures on the petition, giving the district legal means to deny the request.

The new rules would require the state Department of Education to post on its website a sample petition to help prevent issues such as the one in Compton. Strict rules would explain what information parents must include on petitions and how districts should verify signatures. Scare tactics and intimidation would be barred.

The parent trigger law applies to schools with an Academic Performance Index ranking of less than 800 that haven’t made significant improvements. These would not include schools whose performance is so poor that they earn the federal “persistently low-achieving” label and are already subject to overhaul.

Reform options under the law include replacing the principal and adding teacher performance incentives; replacing the principal and firing half of the teachers; shutting down the school and moving students to other, higher-performing schools; or converting the school to a charter.

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