The Los Angeles Parents Union empowers parents to transform public schools through collective action in order to improve failing schools and help create high performing, college-preparatory public schools for every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Vision/Goal
All parents, whether living in Los Angeles’ urban core or living in affluent communities, are united by a desire to attain the best education possible for their children. The Los Angeles Parents Union believes that parents, organized together, will be a leading voice in the reform of Los Angeles’ public school systems, making certain that all students, in every community, receive a top quality, college preparatory public school education.

Core Principles
The Los Angeles Parents Union believes that all schools and school districts should follow the “Parents Union Principles for Education Reform.” The Parents Union Principles are:

1. Parents to be made partners in education: Parents shall be respected and made partners in their children’s education. Parents should be involved in decisions in a meaningful way; this may include the choice of school improvement programs, input in the hiring of staff and the evaluation of school progress. Mechanisms must be created in order to ensure and support sustained parent involvement at every school site. Parents should not be treated as outsiders or nuisances but as essential to the success of their child’s education.

2. Accountability systems to ensure our children’s success: Strong accountability systems with mandatory benchmarks for improvement and transparent reporting processes on outcomes must be implemented to ensure high performance and to close the achievement gap for our children. There must be swift and mandatory consequences for persistently low performing schools. Equally important, high performing schools must be rewarded and replicated.

3. Matching our resources and talents with our children’s needs: High performing teachers and administrators must be matched with the students most in need of their support. A process must be established where effective teachers, administrators and paraprofessionals are recruited and retained at under-performing schools. This includes LAUSD Leadership having the flexibility to provide incentives and/or assign teachers and administrators, as well as shifting more resources to classroom instruction and school site services.

4. Ensuring the most effective partners in our children’s education: Principals and teachers shall be encouraged to act as partners in decisions regarding curriculum delivery and teaching methods so that everyone is treated like a professional. Principals and teachers need to be leaders of innovation as well as delivering on state standards. All school districts will ensure world class professional development opportunities for all employees consistent with the mission of providing a great education for our children.

5. Preparing our children for college, leadership and life: In today’s world, a college degree is a bare minimum for success, and LAPU holds an unwavering belief in the unlimited potential of all students. The basic curriculum at all high schools, for all students, will be a college-prep curriculum that meets University of California / California State University admissions requirements. More AP, GATE and CAHSEE preparation courses must be provided to all students within the district. More life development courses and life-relevant electives must also be provided in order to produce well-rounded students.

6. The best learning environment for our children: Small schools ensure greater teacher-student contact, and encourage better principal-teacher management. New school construction programs should reflect this principle and be directed to build more small school environments. Schools must be kept clean and safety plans must be created and implemented so that no more students fall through the cracks of an overcrowded school.

7. Our children’s performance is everyone’s responsibility: Expectations must be clearly set for the district, administrators, teachers and paraprofessionals. There should be clear performance guidelines for every employee involved in the success of children and clear consequences, up to termination, enacted if and when these guidelines are not enforced and/or attained. Conversely, parents pledge to stay engaged in their children’s education and participate as actively as possible in school administration and operations. Students pledge to strive for their maximum potential in achieving educational outcomes.

8. Ensuring equity in our children’s education: Resources should be distributed based on student need. Resource allocation policies and school budgets should be used to improve student achievement and ensure all students are college and work ready. As a result some students will get more dollars, supports, interventions, facilities enhancements, time for instruction and high quality personnel.

9. Make Schools Community Hubs for our children: Schools should be made to be community institutions where community services, social program providers and after school programs can be made readily available. Schools should stay open longer so that students can have a safe space during hours that parents are at work or unavailable.

Strategy
To transform public schools LAPU will begin with an initial four-pronged strategy:

School Transformations
The Los Angeles Parents Union will focus on helping parent union chapters and affiliates lead “school transformation” projects in which they collaborate with LAUSD and key stakeholders to transform their local, large, failing schools into clusters of small, safe schools that embody the Six Tenets. Successful school transformations provide LAUSD, with a model that can be used to improve all of its failing schools. Transformations can also help rally parents, community members and stakeholders behind a tangible reform goal for neighborhood schools.

Large-Scale Parent Education Campaign
LAPU will lead a campaign to educate parents on the importance of the parent’s three R’s--their rights as parents, resources for parents and the red tape (i.e. the school district system, bureaucracy, power structure etc.) in order to improve their local neighborhood schools. Dubbed the “Parent University,” parents and community organizers lead a series of workshops and forums including Community Organizing 101, an overview on the state of education and how to transform a school. Materials will also be made available via the parent union website so the information can be disseminated broadly.

Parent Sponsored/Supported Litigation and Legislation
The California Constitution states that all students have a constitutional right to an equitable education under the equal protection clause. The federal government has echoed this sentiment through programs such as No Child Left Behind. LAPU will work to ensure that the local school district and state and federal government enforce these laws through parent advocacy and public-interest litigation. The Parents Union will also aggressively support legislative efforts to increase parent involvement in schools and to create safe, small schools for all students.

Building Broad-Based Parent Support
The Los Angeles Parents Union will seek to increase membership and build parent support through the creation of active parent chapters and affiliates throughout Los Angeles. The Central Office of LAPU will provide resources, support staff (e.g. community organizers), training and materials to aid individual chapters. LAPU will also develop public policy campaigns and city-wide actions to advocate for aggressive school district reform efforts.

Affiliates vs. Chapters
In order to maximize parent support throughout Los Angeles, LAPU will create an affiliate program along with its chapter program. Affiliates will be already active parent organizations that agree with and are aligned with the mission of the Los Angeles Parents Union and work for the transformation and improvement of their local public schools. In return for their support of LAPU’s mission, the Los Angeles Parents Union will leverage their resources like the Parent University and other tools to help groups advance in their target areas.