LA Elementary School Problems Lead to Public/Private Collaboration

School district will run early grades while charter program will take over later ones

Rather than do battle over a controversial parent-empowerment law, Los Angeles school officials earlier this year opted for collaboration. This week, that move started to pay dividends.

A plan devised by the L.A. Unified School District and a charter school to improve 24th Street Elementary — a persistently low-performing school south of downtown — has been endorsed by leaders of a parents group.

Under California's so-called parent-trigger law, parents could evict L.A. Unified from its own campus. Instead, the favored proposal calls for the district to run the program for kindergarten through fourth grade. Crown Preparatory Academy would manage grades five through eight.