June 24, 2011
Parent Trigger Court Hearing - A Potential Hanging Chad Moment in the Making
By Gloria Romero, DFER CA State Director
Blog Notes
June 9: Notes from Superior Court Hearing on the Compton Parents and the Parent Trigger Petition
Location: Downtown Los Angeles
You've probably heard the Compton Parent Trigger story by now: over 200 parents grew tired of seeing their kids drop out and fail to learn to read at one of the chronically, lowest performing schools in California. So they banded together to use the historic new Parent Trigger Law (which I authored), only to face an all-out assault by the Compton Unified School District against their efforts to create a better future for their children.
What these parents are doing invokes the spirit of Mendez, a 1946 federal court case that challenged racial segregation in Orange County schools. In its ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in an en banc decision, held that the segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional. Likewise, in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education the United States Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional.
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if the Compton parents are denied their petition this will be tantamount to a "hanging chad" moment in California education law
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As parents go to court to fight for their rights and the futures of their children, Democrats for Education Reform and other advocacy organizations like Parent Revolution are standing by them, side-by-side every step of the way. On June 9th, I sat in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom and watched and listened as the Compton School District - you know, the same folks who complain that they can't do much for kids because parents aren't involved enough - attempted to use every legal trick at its disposal to block the will of a majority of parents who voted to fundamentally change their children's school.
One of the legal arguments they are using involves the significance of the absence of a date on a parent trigger petition. What is especially unnerving is that the concern over the absence of the date-box is entirely hypothetical. In other words, not even the Compton District that is challenging the validity of the petition can identify one single parent who might be disqualified for not having parental representative rights between the date the petition would have been signed by the parent, and the date that the petition was actually submitted! And to bolster the parents' claims, the lawyers representing the parents and the validity of the petition have included and submitted affidavits from parent signatories showing that, indeed, these parents have representative rights!
There's a lot of legalese I could bombard you with, but this is my point: do the hopes and dreams of parents become shattered and obliterated because their petition did not include a date-box? And make no doubt about it: if the Compton parents are denied their petition this will be tantamount to a "hanging chad" moment in California education law where the spirit and clear intent of parents will take a back seat to those in power who seek to exploit arcane technicalities of the law in order to manipulate the outcome.
For now, we await the judge's decision. Undoubtedly, however the Judge rules, the decision will be appealed-either by a District intent on denying parents the right to demand transformation of the educational (lack of) opportunities of their children in the District, or by the parents standing tall to deliver a future for their children.
This is another historic step in the long and winding road of standing up for kids and their parents in California. I'm proud to stand on the side of the parents and their children whose names may be thus far unknown to all but a few, but who are earning their place besides those of Mendez and Brown.
Gloria Romero is the CA State Director of DFER. She was elected to the 24th Senate District in 2001, representing East Los Angeles and the greater San Gabriel Valley. She was elected by her peers to serve as Senate Democratic Caucus Chair and as Senate Majority Leader--the first woman to ever hold that leadership position in the history of the California State Senate. Read more about Gloria here.