Characters & Leadership Roles
This parent initiates the reform effort after realizing her child is not learning to read.
Who is Jamie Fitzpatrick?
This controversial education reform policy allows parents to petition for major structural changes in failing schools.
What is the Parent Trigger Law?
This organization fears losing bargaining power if the parent trigger movement succeeds.
Who are teachers’ unions?
Jamie demonstrates this form of family involvement where parents advocate for systemic change.
What is parent advocacy?
The central conflict of the film highlights tension between these two priorities.
What is student outcomes vs adult job security?
This teacher becomes Jamie’s partner despite professional risk, demonstrating teacher advocacy within a bureaucratic system.
Who is Nona Alberts?
Adams Elementary becomes a reform target due to this systemic issue often identified through accountability data and school performance metrics.
What is chronic academic underperformance?
The union discourages participation in the petition using these political strategies.
What are pressure, misinformation, and political influence?
This framework by Joyce Epstein describes six ways schools can partner with families.
What is Epstein’s Framework of Parent Involvement?
Jamie and her daughter’s dyslexia highlights this broader issue in education systems.
What is equity and unmet learning needs?
This union leader represents the institutional perspective concerned with protecting teacher contracts and job security.
Who is Evelyn Riske?
To initiate reform, parents must gather this threshold of support.
What is teacher tenure vs accountability?
This scene demonstrates how political alliances can shape education policy decisions.
What is the backroom meeting between union leaders and district officials?
Many families initially hesitate to participate due to this common barrier in community engagement.
What is lack of trust in the school system?
The film suggests that meaningful school reform may come from this level rather than top-down mandates.
What is grassroots community action?
This teacher initially resists change but eventually supports reform, illustrating how organizational culture can shift through peer influence.
Who is Michael Perry?
One reform option presented in the film is converting the school into this governance model.
What is a charter school?
Parents are pressured to withdraw signatures because of fears of this.
What is retaliation or loss of school stability?
This concept from Karen Mapp’s Dual Capacity Framework emphasizes building both educator and family ability to partner effectively.
What is relational trust and shared capacity building?
Jamie demonstrates this leadership quality when she persists despite intense opposition.
What is resilient leadership?
This leadership concept explains why many teachers initially resist the parent trigger despite poor outcomes for students.
What is resistance to change in bureaucratic systems?
This national debate is reflected in the movie and centers on balancing teacher protections with accountability for student outcomes.
What is teacher tenure vs accountability?
This leadership concept describes when institutions prioritize protecting adults instead of improving outcomes for students.
What is adult-centered decision making?
This concept describes moving beyond volunteering to shared power and decision making between schools and families.
What is transformational family engagement?
This concept describes the process of transforming a school’s beliefs, norms, and practices in order to improve outcomes for students.
What is organizational change?