School Board in 'Parent Trigger' Fight Could Face Shakeup - Charters & Choice - Education Week

School Board in 'Parent Trigger' Fight Could Face Shakeup - Charters & Choice - Education Week:

School Board in 'Parent Trigger' Fight Could Face Shakeup

By Sean Cavanagh on November 16, 2012 12:26 PM | No comments

A potentially important postscript to the 2012 election is taking shape in Adelanto, Calif., home to a fierce battle over attempts to overhaul a struggling school through a "parent trigger" policy.

The Adelanto district's school board president, Carlos Mendoza, who had strongly opposed a group of parents' effort to use California's trigger law to convert Desert Trails Elementary School to a charter school, is on the verge of being ousted from his seat, according to the most up-to-date results from the Nov. 6 election.

Another incumbent board member in the 8,000-student district, Holly Eckes, would also lose her seat, if the current vote totals hold up. In a race in which the top two finishers win election, Mendoza and Eckes lag behind challengers Teresa Rogers and Elaine M. Gonzales—with Mendoza trailing Gonzales by a mere 24 votes, 2,831 to 2,807. In a separate board race, another incumbent, Jermaine Wright, has a wide lead over his opponents.

None of the vote counts are final yet, and so the results are not official, notes Felisa Cardona of the San Bernardino County Elections Office. But Rogers is a member of the Desert Trails Parent Union, the group attempting to use the parent trigger to overhaul the elementary