Los Angeles Unified School District Braces For First Parent Trigger Take Over

By Patrick Range McDonald Tue., Jan. 15 2013 at 3:16 PM

Categories: Education

24th Street Elementary

Los Angeles Unified School District will finally become a target of a Parent Trigger, a California law that allows parents to take over a failing school in which their children attend, according to L.A. School Report.

Parents at 24th Street Elementary School, with the help of Los Angeles-based education reform group Parent Revolution, will deliver the required signature petition to L.A. Unified officials in downtown on Thursday morning to start the process of taking over the school, according to Parent Revolution officials.

By law, more than 50 percent of parents at a given California school must sign off on the Parent Trigger, which allows parents to institute various changes such as creating a charter school.

Two Parent Triggers have already been attempted in California -- one in Compton and another in Adelanto in the Mojave Desert. Only the Adelanto Parent Trigger was successful.

The 24th Street Elementary School has a number of problems, including one of the worst school rankings in the state.

On the school's web site, though, someone was apparently desperate to find something positive about the failing school, noting that it's "the only Garden School in Los Angeles" and "we pride ourselves in taking the classroom outside, not limiting our students within the confines of a traditional classroom."

Judging from the school's student achievement ranking, L.A. Unified officials may want to get the youngsters back in their little desks and in front of those big chalk boards.

24th Street Elementary School is located in the Historic West Adams District and has been "rooted in [the] community since 1904," according to the school's web site.

Once the signature petition is handed in, parents and Parent Revolution organizers will see how L.A. Unified superintendant John Deasy and school board president Monica Garcia will handle the situation.

Deasy was recently the deputy director of the education division at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Billionaire Gates also helps to fund Parent Revolution, which is headed up by executive director Ben Austin. Will that connection make things easier for the Parent Trigger at 24th Street Elementary?

The two previous Parent Triggers endured lengthy legal battles when the local school districts fought the parent take overs.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.