Welcome to our first-ever School Board Newsletter! Each month, we will share important updates around upcoming events, policy resources, and more! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Joshua Acevedo! 👋🏽 I serve on the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees and am the Campaigns Organizers for school boards at Local Progress and the Local Progress Impact Lab. I’m grateful to get to work with the more than 250 school board members across the LP network to organize around a multi-issue agenda and create a community of practice for progressive school board members!
This month, we are excited to tell you about our upcoming cohort workshop, update you on our upcoming school board convening, provide exciting details on our upcoming National Convening in St. Louis, and share some important resources.
Thanks to everyone who took time to attend our Community Schools workshop last month. This session covered a brief history on community schools and best practices on implementation. You can find more resources on community schools here.
We are looking forward to partnering with the National Education Association (NEA) for our next workshop on the educator shortage.
Tackling the Educator Shortage
Wednesday, May 10 at 3:30 pm PT / 5:30 pm CT / 6:30 pm ET
In partnership with our allies at the National Education Association, this session will offer data-backed strategies to tackle the educator shortage that is affecting school districts across the country. We’ll be hearing from Stacey Pelika, Director of Research, & Dale Templeton, Director of Collective Bargaining and Member Advocacy, for NEA.
SCHOOL BOARD CONVENING IN BALTIMORE, MD
We are excited to host our first School Board Convening in Baltimore this summer. We were overwhelmed with interest for this event and filled all available spots within days of launching the registration.
At this time, if you are interested in attending, please email me at jacevedo@localprogress.org to be placed on the waitlist. If we are able to accommodate more people, we will reach out to you in the coming weeks.
#LP2023 NATIONAL CONVENING
If you aren’t able to attend the school board convening, don’t worry! Because our national convening is right around the corner!
We are beyond thrilled to host our National Convening in St. Louis on September 6-9. This is our most popular annual event that brings together hundreds of local elected officials, labor allies, and organizing partners from all across the country. Registration is now open to all Local Progress members at a 50% discounted rate. Register before May 31 to take advantage of the early bird special!
REGISTER NOW using the code shared by email!
Make sure you copy and paste the promo code to access the registration form and get your discounted tickets!
If you need support in order to attend, you can apply for financial aid by June 30, 2023
It has been a heavy few weeks for our students, staff, and families experiencing gun violence in schools across the country. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. As you continue to lead in your community through these difficult times, here are some resources to support your work:
- Megan Sweet, one of our School Board Steering Committee members and a board member for the Alameda Unified School District in California, created a presentation on her research on gun violence and school safety. Please reach out to me if you would like the full copy of the white paper.
- Talking points and messaging for how to talk about school safety from our Public Safety Messaging Guide.
- Extensive research that Everytown for Gun Safety has put together that may also help in addressing the needs arising in this moment.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. We are here to support the work you are doing in your community.
