Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

After two weeks of testimony from school administrators and education experts, lawyers in the Vergara v California trial are planning to call their first plaintiffs to the stand this week, including Beatriz Vergara.

Vergara and eight other students and their families are challenging state laws they say keep ineffective teachers employed, thus eroding the promise of a quality education for all California public school students. As defendants, the state and its two biggest teacher unions are contending that the laws have not impeded school districts’ ability to remove problem teachers.

The witnesses could begin their testimony as early as today. Besides Vergara, a high school sophomore from Pacoima who attends an LA Unified school, they are Brandon Debose, Jr., a high school senior from Oakland, and Jose Macias, the father of plaintiff Julia Macias, a 13-year-old student from Reseda.