In the past few years, the concept of local control of public education through elected school boards has been superseded by legislation mandating other forms of citizen involvement in educational decision-making. Specifically Alberta's enactment of the Department of Education Act and approval of Operational Plans for Early Childhood Services (ECS) in 1973 mandated citizen involvement that ignored locally elected boards. Lasswell's Social Process Model is a useful framework for the interpretation of ECS policy development since it can be used to discover the motivation, relationships, and interactions contributing to a government policy. When this model is applied to the legislators who developed ECS, some reasons for mandated citizen involvement are revealed. A split in the Social Credit government and the Alberta School Trustees Association was a factor in the government's decision to enact a voluntary ECS model emphasizing parental involvement rather than implementing a universal kindergarten program. Career considerations and election commitments of legislators also influenced the mandatory involvement components. Legislators' child development ideals, research-based expertise, and field-based experience with citizen involvement also contributed to development of the community involvement component. These ideals plus concern with school system rigidities and closed-system bureaucracies helped outweigh the concept of local school board control. (Author/JM)