Los Angeles’ school board has voted unanimously to approve a parent-driven petition to overhaul a troubled elementary school in the West Adams neighborhood of the city, invoked through the state’s parent-trigger law.
The action this month marks the first time that the parent-trigger law has been used in Los Angeles, and the third time such a law has been used in the country. All three uses of the parent-trigger law have occurred in California, although seven states now have such measures on the books.
The board voted to approve the petition to turn 24th Street Elementary School into an independent charter school by the 2013-14 school year. The school’s parent petitioners solicited responses from charter school operators interested in running the school and received eight letters of interest. The parents, 69 percent of whom signed the petition to overhaul the school, will vote on the charter school operator by March 8, according to Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles-based group that has helped guide all three parent-trigger efforts in California.
