Organizing at Schools

This section contains a set of videos and slide decks for use by individuals or groups of parents and teachers who want to organize at their schools. TDP has used and improved these resources over the years as part of our Fellows’ training. They are also part of our on-going series of fellowships offered to parents, school staff, and Community School Coordinators. Our goal is to help interested school stakeholders figure out:

  • How to reach out and get to know each other

  • What their priorities are, and

  • How to align the issues they care about the most with efforts to take part in democratic decision making in schools.

Organizing Parents 101

This slide deck was compiled to help parents and teachers who want to organize a parent-teacher organization at their school

Organizing 102: Telling Our Stories, Listening Deeply

This slide deck is designed to help you deepen your organizing skills so you can build deeper relationships. The key component of organizing others is to build a relationship where there is enough trust to motivate people to action. When building these relationships and having conversations, sharing your own story is critical. Though the emphasis is on listening to the other person and inviting them to take an action, sharing your own story is an important tool that can build necessary trust.

Families and Teachers: The Case For Bridge Building

This slide deck describes a research study conducted by TDP fellows. 25 fellows did a total of over 650 one-on-one interviews with parents, teachers, students and community members to ask them their thoughts about our schools. One of the main take aways was that while parents and teachers have very similar priorities and concerns, they tend to blame each other for the problems. We address how the different school stakeholders might work together, rather than blaming.

Structures for Parent Groups

This slide deck explores the various ways that parents can get involved in democratic school decision making: PTOs, PTAs, School Family Councils and other structures that schools are required to support.

Creating a Strategy for Your Parent Group

This slide deck takes you through the steps for brainstorming and coming up with a viable strategy for your group to tackle a pressing problem.

School Family Councils

This slide deck introduces the basics of a School Family Council: who belongs, how is it formed, what are the main tasks for the group, and how is power shared with parents.

Understanding School Budgets

This slide deck takes you through what you need to know as a parent in order to help construct your school’s budget.

Understanding School Funding

Funding for schools in Maryland is complicated. The state uses a formula to determine how much money to provide to each district, and there are rules for the districts about how to distribute the dollars equitably. Also, local jurisdictions are able to spend more of less of their local tax dollars on education, depending on their wealth and their priorities.

School Family Councils

Amber Kicoyne (at the time of the interview, principal at Medfield Elementary) and Anikwenze Ogbu (Parent) talk with us about how School Family Councils are supposed to work to inform the decision making at schools. They are able to share their first hand knowledge of the successes and challenges associated with bringing together a group of stakeholders to help make decisions.

Expanding on parent organizing

Tyrone Barnwell—Parent Organizer for TDP—on the Impact of Parent Organizing