How can National School Choice Week help your organization? Read the testimonials below from representatives of organizations just like yours to find out how National School Choice Week can assist in rallying support for school choice in your community.
Tree of Life Public Charter School – Washington, D.C.
"The supplies sent helped us jump start our enrollment one month early. It was a great event!"
Charity Wolf-Edmonston - Educational Freedom Kentucky
"National School Choice Week gave Kentucky the opportunity to highlight our public charter and tax credit legislation. We were able to grow the message of support needed locally at the grassroots and legislative level as compared to what is occurring nationally. As a result, we are being offered Kentucky's first chance at a hearing and vote on February 14, 2012!!
National School Choice Week 2012 gave all of our school choice advocates, community leaders and grassroots supporters the opportunity to unite our message with the National voice to bring focus to legislation for the 2012 session."
Israel Teitelbaun - School Choice New Jersey
"Just being part of a national movement was helpful, and the common theme expressed by the banners, scarves and stickers surely added character to the event. We also received 15 RSVP’s directly from your national website, which was enormously helpful in reaching new people we could not have reached.
This year’s National School Choice Week created a solid launching pad, worthy of taking universal school choice to every one of the 50 state legislatures, and to the U.S. Congress - for children of D.C. and U.S. Army bases. There is no better time to begin than now."
Christine Thornhill - Our Lady of Lourdes School
"We thoroughly enjoyed the balloon launch and would enjoy partaking in another blessing and launch next year. Our students' enthusiasm was unmatched. It was a perfect “kick off “ for Catholic School Week."
Rev. Zeke Wharton - Forcey Christian School
"We had close to 100 people at our school’s open house where we trumpeted school choice. Our staff looked great in their yellow scarves. The visuals were very useful for promoting the cause! NSCW raised the awareness of school choice in our school community to unprecedented levels. We have some work to do in Maryland to better advocate for school choice, but raising awareness is an essential step. NSCW helped accomplish this."
Kaleigh Frazier – Communications Director, School Choice Ohio
"Our organization hosted three press events, including a NSCW kick-off press conference at the Ohio Statehouse, which resulted in significant print, radio and television coverage.
National School Choice Week gives our organization the opportunity to organize events around the state that help increase awareness of school choice options in Ohio. Our National School Choice Week events allowed us to engage Ohio legislators – we had 43 legislators who attended our events. We also worked to increase media coverage of school choice in Ohio by hosting three media events."
Liz Dreckman - Arizona School Choice Trust:
"Last year, Arizona took "Best in Show" for three weeks of events celebrating National School Choice Week. A coalition of organizations and schools hosted school tours, major political figures debating the issue, media events, movie showings, and - best of all - the launch of a new online resource for parents sponsored by the Governor's office.
Parents now have a one-stop-shop website that explains all their options in education, from homeschooling, tax credit scholarships, charter schools to public school choice. The site explains the options and then redirects the parent to the organizations that do that work or can help them directly. Arizona is paving the way for a broad range of educational options for ALL families. And, we hope to keep the "Best In Show" title this year... I challenge other states to try to steal the title and to celebrate School Choice Week with passion!"
Malcom Glenn - American Federation for Children:
"National School Choice Week was instrumental in bringing greater awareness to the issue that is central to our mission. The week was able to shine a light on the issues we hold near and dear, and give them mainstream attention in a way that can communicate on a broad level the amazing amount of bipartisanship and strength of the school choice movement. It will continue to help us in raising awareness; when people fully understand the plight of so many of our students who are struggling in schools that don’t fit their needs, they’ll realize the imperative nature of giving families choice now. National School Choice Week is able to sound perhaps the loudest alarm bell as to the importance of that effort."
Andrew Broy - Illinois Network of Charter Schools:
"The Illinois Network of Charter Schools was proud to support National School Choice Week in 2011 with a major parent rally in Chicago. Our organization is designed to provide more high-quality public school options to Illinois families and our partners at NSCW are fully committed to that mission. We hosted a rally in January 2011 demanding that the Chicago Public Schools support the expansion of proven charter school models. More than 1,000 parents attended the rally and the result was just as we anticipated the board approved 13 new high-quality charter school proposals."
Patrick Kaiser - The Center for an Educated Georgia:
"The Center for an Educated Georgia works to ensure all Georgia students receive a quality education. An important component of achieving this goal is providing all families with educational options. To aid in this effort, we organized a school choice rally at the Georgia State Capitol during National School Choice Week.
Over 1,000 students, parents, and teachers from a wide variety of education options attended Georgia’s 2011 School Choice Rally and Celebration on a cold and rainy January day. Charter, private, and home based schools were all represented at the event. After hearing passionate speeches from school choice supporters, the rally attendees streamed into the Capitol to tell their legislators why they support school choice. Widely covered by the media, the event raised the profile of school choice both at the Capitol and across the state."
