How to Build Your Coalition

Contact education leaders in your community
The first steps in building a good coalition should be done simultanteously. You need to recruit education pofessionals to join your coalition and you need to get appointments with your local legislators. It can be helpful to have a coalition started before calling legislators, and having an appointment with a legislator will help you get high powered coalition members.

A great coalition would include school board members, superintendents, administrators, teachers, classified employees, union leaders, a parent and a student. Your selection should cover different school districts and different roles within those districts. The broader your coalition, the better. You need people who are able to speak in support of the public schools in a convincing manner. Make a list and promptly start calling your recruits telling them (or leaving them a voice message) about your plans and tell them to expect an email from you with further details.

Copy, paste, and modify, if desired, this sample email message into an email in your computer's mail program and send it to those you have selected for your coalition. A group of 10 would be ideal. Larger groups simply won't fit well in the typical legislators' conference room and a too-small group won't show the force of your message. You'll want prompt feedback from your recruits so you'll know which ones are committed.

Contact your legislators and local media
Use these links to contact your Assembly Members and State Senators. Call the legislators' schedulers, the editors or publishers of your local newspapers, and the station managers of your local television and radio stations and request an appointment for 45 to 60 minutes of their time. You will find the legislator's scheduler to be very helpful. Tell your contacts about your coalition and the urgency of your message. Specify how many will be in attendance, and don't be afraid to name drop.

You may wish to send a formal letter explaining your coalition's concern, listing your group members and their roles, and asking for an appointment. Some legislators may require a written request.

Develop your presentation in the form of an agenda
The Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) has created an excellent list of Talking Points you can use to create a presentation and an agenda for your meeting. From these, make a list of 10 topics. Submit the list to your coalition members, asking for preferences. The organizer then assigns a topic to each of the group members. If you have more than 10 members, some do not have to speak during the formal presentation. If you have fewer than 10, reduce the topics or have members take on more than one topic. Divide your alloted time among the members, and put the speaking times on the agenda. We have found that legislators will listen to 30 minutes of presentation and then participate in a discussion, especially if they are provided with a written agenda. The group must respect the agenda and the time constraints so that all agendized speakers get to have their assigned time to speak. Use this Sample Agenda as a model.

The most valuable talking point is the governor's "Broken Promise." He made an agreement last year with the Education Coalition that Prop. 98 funding requirements would be suspended for only one year. Here are his exact words in a press release dated Jan. 8, 2004:

"Education is the key to every future success for our state. This Prop. 98 funding will be restored as require by law and our agreement. Today, I am making that promise to our teachers and students."

You may wish to include additional points. It is good to include examples of how your local schools have had to make sacrifices (closed schools, cuts in benefits to staff, programs reduced, class size increases, student supports cut, etc.).

Support your presentation with visuals if possible
Your presentation will be more powerful with the use of graphic support. Several graphs, from the Rand Study for example, printed and mounted on foam core are relatively easy to make, and the governor's promise in bold text makes an excellent visual. If you can produce a Power Point presentation for the group, all the better. Simple name stands for your members will be very helpful when meeting with legislators and can be made by cutting up and folding manila file folders, and pasting on individual names printed from a computer.

Use email to keep coalition members up to date and energized.
It is quite feasible for a single person to handle the organizational issues such as making the agenda, making the contacts, keeping everyone in the loop regarding appointments, especially via email. However, it may be good to have different members assume the various duties. Two people could work together to schedule the meetings. Another could be in charge of the agenda. Yet another could prepare visual displays.

Members must stay in contact with each other
At the conclusion of each meeting, conduct a de-briefing if at all possible. Talk about what worked and what didn't, and how well the group thinks your points were made. As new appointments are scheduled, immediately notify all coalition members and ask them to RSVP within 48 hours. The organizer will maintain a list of members who are committed to attend the various events. As the event draws near, the organizer should make a written agenda for the meeting.

Let CampaignSOS.org know what you're doing
If your group writes editorials or letters to legislators that you would like us to add to our web site, simply send us an electronic version. If we use your submissions, we will name your group and the author on the web site.

We would also like to include your coalition and its members on this website. If you wish to have your email addresses included, please let us know.

When our Santa Cruz County Coalition met with our first legislator, we invited a reporter/photographer to come along. A very nice article was printed in the local newspaper afterwards. The photo that is on our home page was taken at that event. If you have a photo of your coalition in action, send it to us, and we will see that it is posted.

We may be preparing a graph to show which legislators and media contacts have been approached by the various coalitions. Keep us posted and your group's actions will be posted, too!

If you learn of statewide events that deal with the budget and public schools, please notify us, and we will post the information.