Compton’s “Parent-Trigger” Update: Read the Compton School District’s Letter to Parents

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Last night, I asked Parent Revolution to send me a copy of the letter that the Compton Unified School District mailed out to parents of students at McKinley Elementary School. Compton Unified printed the letters on Wednesday, Jan. 19th, and sent them to parents who requested that this chronically low-performing school be turned into a charter:

“As part of the District’s responsibility to evaluate the Petition, we ask that you come to McKinley Elementary School on January 26 or 27, 2011, between the hours of 7:30am-9am or 3pm-6pm (on either date) to sign a form verifying your signature on the Petition. Please make sure to bring photo identification (such as a California driver’s license) as you will be asked to show identification before being provided a signature verification form.”

(See full letter below.)

Why such extremely narrow window of time? The Compton District officials know that most Compton residents are low-income parents, often working two jobs. Do they open their mail every day? I don’t. Will parents be able to get time off from work on such short notice? I can’t. Not to mention that the district requests that all parents come with photo IDs, which will surely be an issue for some undocumented parents in this predominantly Latino school.

Then the letter says that the signatures of no-shows will be disqualified.

This gives me serious pause. I’ve been working with the San Francisco Unified District since November, where I report on a high school with test scores similar to McKinley’s, and I haven’t seen anything like this in SF.

To be fair: Parent Revolution doesn’t seem like a fair player in this political fight either. The signature gathering process was done under the radar; Louis Freedberg over at California Watch rightfully calls it a “stealth campaign.” The district, the school, and even McKinley’s PTA didn’t know anything about it in advance. As state PTA president Jo Loss told California Watch, the Parent Revolution’s petition gave parents only one option: to turn this school into a charter, even though the law provides three other choices.

If nothing else, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the Compton District’s extremely narrow window for verifying signatures of this most controversial and important petition in education reform was unprofessional at best, deliberate at worst. Ron Suazo, Compton School District spokesperson, didn’t want to comment on the phone when I called this morning. He told me he’ll email me the official response by the district explaining their rationale later today. I’ll post it as soon as it comes in, but it’s 6:30 pm PST and so far, nothing.

[Update on Jan. 27: Good news for parents who signed the petition, after two days of calling and emailing by MoJo, the Compton Unified sent in a statement from Acting Superintendent Karen Frison:

“We understand McKinley parents/guardians may not be able to attend our signature verification process, so we will offer a make-up date the following week, and we will also contact them if they have been unable to meet with us. The district is open to developing other ways for them to participate in an effort to accommodate their work schedules. The signature verification process is designed to protect the voice of McKinley’s families, regardless of their position on the parent trigger law.”]

Read the Compton Unified School District letter to parents:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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