Sarah Tully, EdSource

A saucepan of forms to opt out of Common Core-aligned tests sits at a protest in May 2022 at Yorba Linda High School.

Sarah Tully, EdSource

A bucket of forms to opt out of Common Cadre-aligned tests sits at a protest in May 2022 at Yorba Linda High School.

A parents group claims a Los Angeles County school district failed to notify parents of their correct to opt their children out of Common Cadre-aligned tests in a lawsuit filed this calendar week.

Concerned Parents of California filed the lawsuit against Walnut Valley Unified School District in Los Angeles Superior Court, proverb that parent letters excluded data on opting out of Smarter Balanced assessments, according to the adjust. Walnut Valley Unified, east of Los Angeles, has 14,500 students in kindergarten through 12th grades.

Matt Witmer, banana superintendent for educational services at Walnut Valley Unified, declined to comment almost the lawsuit because district officials had not received it as of Thursday morning.

But Witmer said the district "complied fully with the law" and followed the California Department of Teaching'due south guidance when notifying parents about the Smarter Balanced assessments before they were given for the first time in the spring.

Brad Dacus, the lawyer who is representing Concerned Parents, said he has heard complaints statewide about districts failing to follow state law in telling parents about their opt-out rights. (See California Education Code 60615 and California Code of Regulations 852b.)

Just Walnut Valley was chosen for the lawsuit because he knew parents in that district who received notices that excluded data almost opting out, Dacus said.

"Without any doubt, this is not an isolated incident," said Dacus, the president and founder of the Pacific Justice Plant, a legal defense force arrangement that focuses on religious freedoms and parental rights. "This is a statewide trouble and it needs to exist corrected in school districts across the state of California. Nosotros're hopeful this case will open the eyes of schoolhouse districts across the state to correct their policies to ensure acceptable find."

The lawsuit asks that the commune comply with the law and award attorney'south fees to the parent grouping.

The Concerned Parents grouping has members statewide, including parents of students in Walnut Valley, the conform states. Concerned Parents chapters and the Pacific Justice Institute take been agile in fighting the Mutual Cadre curriculum and tests.

The results of the Smarter Balanced assessments, part of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, were released final week. The assessments approximate students' knowledge in English language and math based on Common Cadre standards.

Out of three.2 million students statewide, almost 19,000 had parental exemptions from the tests, according to preliminary estimates. Last opt-out numbers are expected to exist released next month.

While less than i percent of students opted out of the tests in California, other states have had far more objections. In Washington, almost one-half of the high school juniors refused to take the test. Virtually twenty percentage of New York students opted out of the tests.

Update: Concerned Parents of California has filed a second related lawsuit against the Conejo Valley Unified Schoolhouse District in Ventura County Superior Court. Pacific Justice Institute lawyers say they are planning to file similar lawsuits confronting other districts, as well.

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