“LaVerne Prep wins by landslide”
by Lynnea Lombardo
Victorville Daily Press
October 19, 2012
LaVerne Preparatory Academy will be the charter school transforming Desert Trails Elementary, winning the parent vote by a landslide late Thursday night, drawing cheers and hugs from the small crowd of parents and children gathered just outside the school.
The small group of Parent Revolution workers, Desert Trails Parent Union parents and children was disbanded quickly, however, as rumors of a bomb threat circled within the crowd, sending everyone back to the Desert Trails Parent Union headquarters a few blocks away.
The threat came as no surprise to Joe Morales, a DTPU member and founder of HD Dads for Education.
“We’ve experienced opposition from the very beginning,” Morales said. “But we are victorious once again.”
LaVerne Prep in Hesperia, which serves mainly minority students, had the highest API score for charter schools in the High Desert and the highest API score in the entire Hesperia Unified School District.
“The parents made the right choice. We are going to roll up our sleeves and get to work,” said Debra Tarver, founder and executive director of LaVerne Prep, via speaker phone at the DTPU headquarters house. “Our job is the kids. We are ready to go there and do whatever it takes to get things the way they need to be.”
According to a press release from Parent Revolution, this is the first time in the United States that parents, using the Parent Trigger law, have had a direct say in who should run their failing school. For the Parent Trigger law to take effect, more than 50 percent of parents with children attending the school had to sign a petition in favor of comprehensive changes they would like to see made. The Adelanto School District Board of Trustees attempted to rescind 97 signatures of parents
