School boards are pivotal in shaping the education of almost 50 million public school students nationwide. School boards are responsible for setting school district vision, goals, and priorities; adopting local policies; ensuring adequate budgets, facilities, materials, and personnel; and hiring and evaluating the top administrator, the superintendent of schools. The National School Boards Association states that in carrying out these responsibilities, “[t]he school board represents the community’s voice” and continues explaining that school board members “are elected by the people in their community to represent their values, views, and desires for the public schools in their district.”
Effective bodies of citizen governance, like school boards, require knowledgeable community members to participate actively in the decision-making process. By contributing their experience and expertise to school board proceedings, educators can play a valuable role in shaping their school district’s vision, goals, priorities, and policies. The CivxNow Coalition* recently held a training webinar for educators on best practices in school board advocacy, led by Jessica Ellison, the National Council for History Education Executive Director and a school board member in Minnesota.
Below are five suggested school board advocacy practices for educators adapted from this webinar.
Be prepared.
Impactful advocacy requires careful preparation. An influential advocate must:
- Make sure the issue of concern is the school board’s responsibility. School boards are responsible for governance (vision, goals, policy, budget, etc.), not administrative matters, such as individual personnel issues, school-based concerns, or small budget items. In the webinar, Ellison states: “The school board chooses the destination. The superintendent and leadership choose the path to get there.”
- Be an expert on the issue. An advocate should be knowledgeable not only about the substance of the issue but also about recent school board actions and conversations concerning it. Most school boards maintain a webpage on the school district’s website that includes links to prior meeting recordings, agendas, and related materials.
- Understand the rules that govern school board decision-making. Each school board operates with its own set of procedures and rules. Some of these processes may be dictated by state law, and the individual school board may establish others. Advocates can generally find information about the decision-making process on the school board’s webpage.
Connect with school board members.
An easy way to communicate your views on an issue is to connect with individual school members by letter or email or schedule an in-person meeting. Board webpages often include contact emails for school board members. Two things to consider when communicating with school board members:
- Many states have “sunshine” laws restricting the number of school board members that can meet at one time before it is considered a meeting and must comply with public meeting laws.
- School board members do not act as individuals; they can only act collectively as a board.
Advocate at school board meetings.
Most school board meetings set aside time for public comments. Public comments are a time for members to listen to community concerns. A school board meeting is a meeting in public and not a public forum; generally, there will not be any conversation or back-and-forth discussion. When participating in public comments, the advocate should:
- Understand public comments procedures. Many school boards require speakers to register before the meeting and can limit the number of speakers per meeting.
- Be compelling. Time for public comments is generally limited, sometimes only three minutes in length. Make sure your message is concise, powerful, and personalized. Many board meetings are recorded and posted on the board’s webpage. Watch previous public comments sessions to understand what is effective and practice your comments.
- Encourage your colleagues to participate. There is power in numbers. If more than one colleague is speaking, coordinate public comments to leverage the speaking time. If some of your colleagues are uncomfortable speaking publicly, encourage them to attend the school board meeting to support you. School board members take notice of this support.
Exercise your right to vote.
The purest form of advocacy is exercising one’s right to vote. Approximately 90 percent of all school board members are elected by their local communities (mayors or governors appoint a small number of school boards). Unfortunately, according to the National School Boards Association, few voters participate in school board elections, approximately 5–10 percent of the voter base. A lack of voter participation raises the risk that school boards may not reflect the diversity of a community or its values and views. To exercise your right to vote, you should:
- Make sure you are registered to vote. Check out your state’s voter information guide or secretary of state website to find your polling place, voter registration status, and more.
- Know when your school board holds elections. School board elections may be scheduled on a different day than national or state elections.
- Be informed. Before casting your ballots, try to learn as much as possible about the candidates. Many districts host community forums to hear from the candidates.
Participate in community conversations.
Have you ever chatted with a family member or neighbor and been surprised by their assumptions about best teaching and learning practices and how they are or are not implemented in your school district? This happens far too often. Advocating for education change does not always have to be formal. Informal conversations with family members, friends, and neighbors about issues may encourage them to become involved in the decision-making process by attending a school board meeting, participating in a local school board election, or even running for school board! Other ways to participate in community conversations include:
- Attending in-person or virtual community forums
- Writing a newspaper opinion piece or a letter to the editor
- Joining advocacy groups
Educators’ proactive participation in school board advocacy is crucial to creating school districts that honor educators’ expertise and experience and reflect the needs of students, families, teachers, and communities. Local, state, and national policies are often designed and implemented with little or no teacher input.
Far too often, the most important decisions about education are made by people without any classroom experience. Thinking you know what’s best for schools because you were once a student is like saying you can perform open-heart surgery because you watched it on Grey’s Anatomy. (“Teachers Can Positively Impact Education Policy, We Just Have to Use Our Teacher Voice,” EdSurge, March 24, 2022)
But this doesn’t have to be the case. Teachers can make a difference by participating in their local school board process.
*To support teacher advocacy, NCTE is a member of the CivXNow Coalition, which sponsors Teachers Advancing Civic Learning (TACL), a grassroots network of educators trained and empowered to advance and strengthen civic learning through policy at the local, state, and national levels. NCTE is joining with the CivXNow Coalition to implement a quarterly educator advocacy training/webinar. The recordings of the first two webinars in the series are available when you join TACL (complete this short form). The upcoming live webinars on state and federal advocacy are available to all NCTE members. Dates will be announced in the member newsletter and NCTE’s Instagram.