Are Your Schools Underfunded? Then Organize!
By Amy Jordan
On a cold Saturday morning, more than 100 educators, parents and students showed up to school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, a big turnout for a meeting like this. Forty-three people spoke during the public hearing and 2,400 signatures were delivered calling on the school board to fully fund public education in the growing school district, efforts led by the Loudoun Education Association (LEA.)
On a cold Saturday morning, more than 100 educators, parents and students showed up to school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, a big turnout for a meeting like this. Forty-three people spoke during the public hearing and 2,400 signatures were delivered calling on the school board to fully fund public education in the growing school district, efforts led by the Loudoun Education Association (LEA.)How did LEA get so many people involved? Through a focused commitment to organizing
.
Step 1: Rally around a single issue
You’d think students in the wealthiest county in the nation would have everything they need to succeed in school, but that’s not the case in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is also one of the fastest growing school systems in the country.
For the past two years, the county’s School Board and Board of Supervisors have chosen not to keep pace with Loudoun’s growth by cutting the superintendent’s spending proposals by millions of dollars.
Step 1: Rally around a single issue
You’d think students in the wealthiest county in the nation would have everything they need to succeed in school, but that’s not the case in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is also one of the fastest growing school systems in the country.
For the past two years, the county’s School Board and Board of Supervisors have chosen not to keep pace with Loudoun’s growth by cutting the superintendent’s spending proposals by millions of dollars.
“The children are in over-crowded classrooms, they are receiving less differentiated instruction due to the amount of students in the classroom, teachers are not being given competitive pay, and the technology is quite sad,” said second grade teacher Erin O’Dore.
And now educators, parents and students themselves have had enough.
“In Loudoun County we’ve had so many years of budget underfunding and people are just fed up,” said Joey Mathews, president of the Loudoun County Education Association.
So LEA officers and the LEA Board of Directors got together on weekends to plan how to organize around a