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LA Unified’s Fremont High School
The California Department of Education released its annual list of 1,000 underperforming schools earlier this month. The list includes 95 from LA Unified, and students attending them can now apply for an open enrollment transfer to any other public school in California for the next academic year.
The list is compiled each year as a result of the Parent Empowerment Act of 2010, which created the “Parent Trigger” act and the Romero Open Enrollment Act.
Until recently, it looked as if the list would be irrelevant to parents at LA Unified looking to use it to enact their parent trigger powers, after former Superintendent John Deasy proclaimed over the summer that the district believed it was not subject to the Parent Trigger act this academic year.
However, Deasy’s replacement, Ramon Cortines, has reversed course and said the law would apply to the district this year.
The act allows for parents to make sweeping changes at an underperforming school if over 50 percent of them sign a petition. The changes can include firing the principal, replacing 50 percent of the staff and converting to a charter school.
The schools on the underperforming list apply to transfer requests for the 2015-16 academic year. The list is comprised primarily using API scores, but since California did not calculate 2014 API scores as a result of the state transitioning to Common Core testing, the list was based on 2013 API scores.
The new list is not the same as last year’s list, which also used the 2013 scores, as it was adjusted based on schools’ opening or closing, schools that converted to or from charter status and schools that changed to or from a school type excluded from the Romero Open Enrollment Act.
The state list includes 687 elementary schools, 165 middle schools and 148 high schools, and does not apply to charter schools.
Among the high schools this year is Jefferson High, which has been in the headlines as a result of major scheduling problems the schools has experienced, leading a judge to order the state to intervene. The ACLU and Public Counsel, which represent the plaintiffs in the case, are currently seeking state intervention at Fremont High and Dorsey High, which are both also on the list.