Parents and Their School Trigger Win Round in Court

Compton parents of students at McKinley Elementary School have launched the first attempt to use the state's new parent trigger law, which permits parents to demand, via petition, that the school be transformed. (These parents want a charter).

The parents have been blocked by the Compton school district, which disallowed the petition and instituted a method of verifying parent signatures on the petition that parents saw as coercive. On Tuesday, the parents won an early round in court, with a judge telling the school district that their treatment of the parents' signatures -- which had involved requiring parents to appear personally for verification -- was unconstitutional.

What this means is hard to know, since this is the early stage of what promises to be a long fight. But it may be an indication that the courts will be sympathetic to parents who try to use the trigger -- or at least harsh on school districts who don't give great deference to the parents' signatures on a petition. The LA Weekly, which has closely followed the story, has some more details here.

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