‘Parent Trigger” Fails At An Anaheim, California, Elementary School
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Virginia Tibbetts is a teacher with 26 years of experience in California public schools. This is her account of the Anaheim City School District’s school board meeting and ACSD’s rejection of Parent Revolution’s ‘parent trigger’ petition to convert Palm Lane Elementary School from a fully publicly-funded and -run public school into a charter school. She attended the school board meeting in person.
English: Panorama of the City of Anaheim in California, United States Français : Panorama de la ville d’Anaheim en Californie, États-Unis Deutsch: Panorama der Stadt Anaheim in Kalifornien, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The board room of the Anaheim City School District was packed this evening, February 19, with people from various factions, all there with one purpose: to hear the report from Superintendent Dr. Linda Wagner and her cabinet regarding the verification of signatures collected and turned in on January 15 to restart Palm Lane Elementary School as a charter under the Parent Trigger Law.
After this presentation, the trustees would vote to either approve or refuse the petition. The Board President, Bob Gardner, motioned that the time limit for one subject be lengthened from 20 minutes, as per board policy, to 90, so everyone could have time to speak. Speaking during this 90 minutes were mostly parents, both for and against the petition. Many of these parents spoke with much emotion, but whether they supported the trigger law or not, all spoke highly of their children’s teachers from Palm Lane.
The California School Employee Association and the Anaheim Elementary Education Association only sent up one representative as they wanted the parents to be heard. [Former California State Senator and author of the Parent Trigger law] Gloria Romero and her lawyer each spoke. Her lawyer, Robert Lome, said he had 11 affidavits from petitioners who swore they did not offer any gifts for signing. CSEA also had 7 affidavits of parents who swore they were coerced with gifts of after-school tutoring and iPads for their signatures. These Parent Trigger Fails At Anaheim Elementary School: