Araceli Orozco knew there was a serious problem with her daughter’s school when she saw a girl drinking water from the basin of a broken drinking fountain. “This little girl had a straw and I thought she was playing with bubbles,” recalls the Hayward mother of four. “Then, I realized. It was a very hot day and the drinking fountains weren’t working.”Orozco says this incident, along with recent closings of several neighborhood schools serving children in low-income families, pushed her to act.

Orozco contacted Public Advocates, which helped her rally parents, file complaints with the school district, and get problems fixed.

Hayward: “It was a real success”

Hayward parents used what is known as the Williams complaint process (see below:  Williams complaint process) to “file complaints (about) bathrooms, drinking fountains, broken playground structures, bleachers, missing textbooks, and two teachers who weren’t properly credentialed,” says Tara Kini, an attorney with Public Advocates.

Because the Williams process includes a deadline for schools to fix problems, “the whole process moved really quickly,” says Kini. The parents contacted Public Advocates in March. They passed out flyers and went to other schools to get the word out. Public Advocates held a training in mid-March for students, teachers, and parents about the Williams case.

Over the next few weeks, parents filed 40 complaints about issues in eight schools—and got responses in June. “Ceiling panels were replaced, drinking fountains were fixed,” she adds. “It was a real success. The parents got the problems remedied. We educated the entire community. Now they are taking that knowledge to others and educating them.”

“We (didn’t) know our rights,” says Orozco. “We aren’t educated on how to advocate for our kids. It was (also) kind of hard to manage my time with all these meetings, school, work, and family. But we each told a few people and those people told a few people. Really, what happens to your neighbor will eventually happen to you. If we teach our kids to help, maybe our kids will help each other.”

“Our number one priority is to resolve issues for families,” says Linda Mangon of the Hayward Unified School District. “Parents bringing something (to our attention) that they’re noticing really helps.”

Hawthorne: “I feel empowered”

After picking her daughter up from Hawthorne High School more than once because school bathrooms were locked, Hawthorne mother Mariel Rubio decided to have a look. “They were nasty. There was no toilet paper, things were broken. In the boys’ bathroom, there were three sinks missing, pipes coming out of the wall. There were no mirrors, no seat covers.” Rubio took photos and went to the principal with her findings. “I said it wasn’t acceptable,” she recalls.

Rubio spoke with students who had delivered a petition to the superintendent asking for clean, unlocked bathrooms—they told her they’d never heard back. Rubio says she next met with the president of the school board, and was told it would cost millions to have the bathrooms fixed. “They were clearly aware of the issues. They just wouldn’t do anything about it,” she adds.

Hawthorne High’s principal and school district declined to comment for this article.

After searching the Internet, Rubio turned to Public Advocates. They helped her and the students file 47 complaints about the bathrooms and missing textbooks.

“Six months ago I was ready to either homeschool or move out of the district because of the conditions,” she says. “(Now) I feel empowered.”

Williams complaint process

California is required to provide all students with equal access to instructional materials, safe and decent school facilities, and qualified teachers, according to the 2004 settlement of the Williams vs California class-action lawsuit.

“Any community member (can) speak up when students don’t have access to the ‘three Ts:’ textbooks, teachers, and toilets,” says Tara Kini, Public Advocates attorney. Parents, teachers, and community members can get their school to fix problems by filing a complaint through the Williams process.

Advocates advise people to:

• Document the problems: Parents can talk with their child—Are there enough textbooks? Do the bathrooms work?—and ask for a tour of the school.
  
  
• Take action: First, talk with the principal, advises Marc Tafolla Young, an attorney with the Education Equity Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. “The principal has 30 days to remedy the problem (or) 10 days to forward the problem to the district. No matter what school you’re at, these standards apply,” he says. 
  
  People can get the complaint form online (see Resources) or from the school or district. They can submit complaints to the principal, the school district, and the county superintendent. People can submit complaints in a language other than English and—if they do, or if 15 percent of students at the school speak a language other than English—the district’s response must also be in that language.
  
  Organizations such as Public Advocates and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights can help people through the process, including filing a complaint anonymously.
  
  
• Follow-up if necessary to make sure the problems get fixed. People can attend school board meetings or—if the complaint is about an immediate risk to health and safety—appeal to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Orozco’s group also met with district staff in charge of maintenance, human resources, and textbooks.
  

Resources

• Public Advocates, 415-431-7430, www.publicadvocates.org
  
  
• Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, 415-543-9444, www.lccr.com
  
  
• Just Schools California offers a step-by-step guide to the Williams complaint process in English and Spanish, 310-267-4408, http://justschools.gseis.ucla.edu/
  news/williams/complaints/index.html
  
  
• California Department of Education provides information in English and Spanish on filing a Williams complaint, including examples, 916-319-0929, www.cde.ca.gov/re/cp/uc

Extra resources from the Children’s Advocate bulletin

• Williams v California, from Public Advocates, finds that the class-action lawsuit has improved teaching and learning conditions in the state's lowest-performing schools.
  
  
• The Spring 2007 issue of American Educator includes two articles on school reform:
  *   The Facilities Gap discusses unsafe and unhealthy school facilities.
  *   Get Real recommends that schools focus on teacher quality and retention, a respectful school culture, early intervention for children with reading problems, and extra attention and resources for schools serving the neediest students.
  

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