Two Suitors Emerge in 'Parent Trigger' Bid

The California school that parents want to turn into a charter now has two organizations seeking to make the change. 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. Neither of the two finalists, LaVerne Elementary Preparatory Academy, in the nearby city of Hesperia, and the Lewis Center for Educational Research, a nonprofit group in neighboring Apple Valley, which oversees two charters, has experience turning around an academically low-performing school. Both organizations acknowledge the challenges if they are chosen to manage a new charter school at Desert Trails, perhaps most notably the prospect of trying to repair bitter divisions among parents in Adelanto.