Beyond baking brownies
Parent activism moves from schools to Sacramento
Cupertino is a fairly affluent city in Silicon Valley, so when the school district sent layoff notices to 107 teachers last year, a group of parents mobilized a massive fundraising effort to save those jobs. They raised more than $2 million in two months. But Hoi Yung Poon, who helped organize the campaign, realized that this type of fundraising wasn’t a long-termsolution. “It wasn’t a sustainable plan,” said Poon. “Our focus is targeting and mobilizing parents in Silicon Valley and partnering with parents in other parts of the state.”
A handful of PTA parents in San Francisco public schools organized a town hall meeting on education on Feb. 25, 2010. It featured legislators, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, and KQED Public Radio’s Michael Krasny as moderator. Despite that firepower, the moms expected