Parent Revolution is sponsoring a showing of the documentary, "Waiting for Superman," followed by a discussion at the Altadena Main Library Community Room at 6 PM Mon, April 18.
"Waiting for Superman," directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"), looks at the problems of public education by following a handful of students through the system as they try to win a lottery to attend a charter school.
According to Yuritzy Anaya, one of the organizers, Parent Revolution is a nonprofit organization that was started as a group of moms who were working to give parents a greater voice in low-achieving schools. Parent Revolution was one of the forces behind the Parent Empowerment Act passed by the state legislature last year, creating a "parent trigger" where the majority of parents of a low-performing school can call for sweeping changes, including changes in staffing or turning the school into a charter school. The organization was involved in McKinley Elementary in Compton pulling the parent trigger last year to convert it to a charter school.
Anaya said that the organization's approach was to have parents "form Parent Union chapters to organize around issues they want to to organize around, with the idea eventually to invoke parent trigger." A parent's union provides parents with "the tools they need to achieve that and push forward and attacking the issues they want."
Anaya said that they were urged to have a presentation in Altadena after meeting with Bruce Wasson, the chief petitioner of Altadenans for Quality Education, which is pushing for an Altadena school district.
"Bruce contacted us, he had been kind of hearing what happened in Compton where we started organizing around McKinley Elmentary, the first parent trigger school, and wanted to get in touch with us ... we've been doing these screenings in other areas to get people to watch this film, and give then an idea of what Parent Revolution does, and what we could help them with if interested."
