Education Week: Two Suitors Bid to Transform 'Parent-Trigger' School

Education Week: Two Suitors Bid to Transform 'Parent-Trigger' School:

Two Suitors Bid to Transform 'Parent-Trigger' School

Principal David Mobley, left, is handed 465 signatures earlier this year from parents of students at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, Calif., where families used the state's 2010 "parent trigger" law to petition to convert the academically struggling school into a charter school.

—David Pardo/The Victor Valley Daily Press/AP-File

By Sean Cavanagh

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At the end of a process that drew just four applicants, two relatively small California organizations are each making a case that they be allowed to help lead one of the most publicized school turnaround efforts in the nation's history: the proposed transformation of Desert Trails Elementary School.

Parents in the community of Adelanto, northeast of Los Angeles, invited charter operators to submit proposals to help them transform the academically struggling school through the state's "parent trigger" law, even as the school's future remains the subject of a protracted legal battle.

Despite the overwhelming attention focused on the proposed school overhaul, the parents received limited interest from charter organizations before narrowing the list to two finalists.

The parents and others supporting the school transformation say the finalists, both based