Steve Zimmer proposed the following resolution to the Los Angeles Board of Education. His goal is to make sure that parents are fully informed and protected against stealth campaigns to trick parents into handing their school over to a charter operator or firing the staff.
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District
OPEN SESSION ITEMS
Board Resolutions For Initial Announcement
1. Mr. Zimmer – Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation (For Action June 18, 2013, 12 p.m.)
Whereas, The Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District recognizes the essential role of parents and legal guardians in every aspect of their child’s public education and in the successful transformation of schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District;
Whereas, California State Education Code 53300-53303 (The Parent Empowerment Act) allows for parents at persistently lowest achieving schools to trigger options for school transformation if over 50% of parents or legal guardians at a campus sign a petition calling for the implementation of one of four interventions;
Whereas, California State Education Code 53300-53303 only allows parents and legal guardians who sign the petition to vote for the selected transformation model;
Whereas, California State Education Code 53300-53303 does not currently require public meetings or other mechanisms to ensure accurate and balanced information about school performance or transformation options be provided to all stakeholders during the petition process;
Whereas, Two District elementary schools have been transformed through this process in the 2013-14 school year and the Board assumes there will be several attempts to transform District schools in the 2014-15 school year;
Whereas, Very limited information about the school and monitoring of the signature gathering process was presented to the Board for 24th Street and Weigand Avenue Elementary Schools;
REGULAR MEETING ORDER OF BUSINESS
333 South Beaudry Avenue, Board Room 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Public Comments on Items to be Discussed at This Meeting
The public can address the Board at the commencement of the meeting in the Board Room on any item that is described in this notice or other issues under the purview of the Board of Education. At the conclusion of the closed session portion of the meeting, announcements required regarding actions taken by the Board of Education will be made in the Board Room.
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Bd. of Ed. Regular Board (CS) Meeting – 1 – Order of Business, 9:00 a.m., 06-18-132.
Whereas, The Board has not adopted specific policies and guidelines for receiving petitions and validating the transformation process; and
Whereas, The Superintendent has not issued clear guidelines for principals and school site personnel regarding protocols and operational procedures for each stage of the parent trigger process; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District directs the Office of General Counsel and the Superintendent to submit the following information to the Board for each future transformation petition that is presented to the Board:
1. Independent verification of the signatures and the signature gathering process
2. Evidence of public notice and a summary of information presented at a public meeting held in the school community detailing accurate information about the school and the
available options for transformation
3. An analysis of five years of school data
4. A summary of interventions attempted at the school site and an analysis the success or failure of these attempted interventions
5. An analysis of school report card data and/or school climate survey data;
Resolved further, That the Superintendent bring guidelines and operational procedures for school site personnel to use during parent trigger processes for review by the Board at the first scheduled business meeting of the 2013-14 school year; and, be it finally
Resolved, That the Board urges the Superintendent and Office of Government Relations staff to seek legislative changes to California State Education Code 53300-53303 that will better serve all parents and legal guardians in the transformation process. These changes should include, but not be limited to:
1. Provisions that ensure all parents and legal guardians (not solely those who sign the petition) be allowed meaningful participation in all aspects of the transformation process and vote on the transformation option;
2. Provisions that ensure accurate and independently verifiable information about school performance and transformation options that are available to all parents; and
3. Provisions that safeguard against manipulation of families in the process and validate training of all Parent Empowerment Act signature gatherers.
As a parent, I firmly believe in transparency and checks and balances. At face value these recommendations are VERY reasonable. I can’t imagine any pushback. ALL educational decision making adults should be held accountable towards improving educational experiences for children and ANY processes affecting the educational and overall well being of children should be super transparent.
Good news and wonderful headline!
We are way ahead of Zimmer as we already have a program to educate parents on Title 1, special education and the law, rules and regulations of the Parent Trigger law, rules and regs. This is being done by the California Title 1 Parent Union. They are listed in the latest book on the arts by the State of California as the trainers of parents other than the PTA in California. The Board of Ed. is the body which sat there while the parents told them of the illegal signatures and no knowledge of what they voted on. I then sent to every board member, Zimmer included, the law, rules and regs and that they must undo the Parent Triggers already approved as they are illegal as a result of the bad signatures. He is not talking about that. His resolution is about training for parents as to the possibilities of management if parents pull the trigger and one of them calls for eliminating the principal and then the parents can put into place any management form they want to which means the parents can run the school by themselves or more properly with the parents, teachers and community and in high school with a student with a vote on the governing board. Also, in this resolution is verification of the signatures and that they were legally properly obtained as is not done now. Presently, Parent Revolution goes for small elementary schools with a lot of poverty so as to make the game easy for them. This is a game changer in LAUSD anyway and if the resolution goes all the way the law at the state level will be changed to make sure of the education and votes taken are proper and under “Informed Consent.” This is not an accident as what was sent to the board was forwarded to many others including press and recently you saw the op ed in the L.A. Times on this issue. No accident when confronted with the facts on the ground of the illegal behavior. They have to save face in light of their helping with the illegal behavior for their friends.
The public needs to know that this law was written and introduced by Ben Austin, head of Parent Revolution. No one should be surprised that the Code of Regulations allows that:
“…..signature gatherers, school site staff or other members of the public may discuss education related improvements hoped to be realized by implementing any intervention described in these regulations.”
However, the following statement attempts to stifled the voices of anyone wanting to discuss not just the “pros” of the related improvements, but also the “cons”.
“(i) School or district resources shall not be used to impede the signature gathering process pursuant to this section.”
Would you say this is a “little” one-sided? Sadly, Parent Revolution descends on a school before anyone can launch a counter campaign. It’s almost as if Parent Revolution is afraid of allowing parents any opportunity to ask questions about the ramifications of signing the petition other than information provided to them by the signature gatherers. With LAUSD sending out a directive to teachers that basically imposed a gag order, it becomes clear that parents have been disrespected as they are never allowed to make an “informed” decision.
Hey, this is a step in the right direction. If the parent trigger law is used as it was intended, all parties should know what is going on and every step in the process including who is funding signature gathering etc. should be sunshined. There appears to be some light on our L.A. board. May it continue to shine through the past stupidity and darkness. Class size reduction hopefully is coming.
IF parent trigger must remain (I think it’s a terrible idea in general as Diane has previously blogged about so eloquently – perhaps it has good intent to get more parents involved) I think 50% is too low a threshold. You’ll have half the parents at a school hate the other half of the school in some cases…does that put “Students First”?
Sounds like a huge stalling device to me. As a former principal, all this analysis and transparency to the public should be being done all the time. The parents are always made aware of the API and even if it’s high, they know when their kid is being promoted without being able to read, write, or think critically. In the case of Adelanto, the school had been in PI for the entire life of an elementary school kid and been through several principals. Enough was enough, and Parent Revolution finally called the district’s bluff.
Are you kidding? In Adelanto just 53 people voted to replace a public school with a charter corporate that educates less than a third of special needs students than does the district. Where will those students go now? It’s criminal what these Parent Revolution thugs do with all that Walton Foundation blood money they have access to.
What is PI? And in what kind of school were you a “principal”? What kind of “principal”?