RALEIGH - Only nine school districts in the state -- and just one in the Triangle -- had top-rated policies for parental involvement in schools, according to a survey released Friday.

Appleseed, a nonprofit legal group based in Washington that focuses on social justice issues, released the report at the annual N.C. PTA Annual Parent Education Conference.

Appleseed has monitored compliance across the nation with the section of the No Child Left Behind Act that requires school districts to have policies for fostering parental involvement in schools. The group surveyed 115 school districts in the state, according to Edwin Darden, director of public education policy for Appleseed.

Although almost all of the districts that responded met the minimum requirements of the law, only nine had policies that Appleseed rated as "substantive," Darden said.

Among the criteria that earned the higher rating were that the policies had methods for implementation and had some element for parents to hold schools accountable.

In the Triangle, just Chatham County had a substantive policy. The Orange, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Durham, Wake and Johnston school districts were rated only as being in compliance.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg -- the state's second-largest school system, behind Wake -- was among the school districts with substantive policies.

In a gathering of PTA members Friday at the N.C. Museum of History, Darden emphasized the importance of NCLB's parental involvement policies.

"We hope to scatter this report to the winds in North Carolina and that people will use it to make real change," he said.