Parent organizations often take on advocacy projects after a parent or group of parents become invested in a particular issue and engage and organize the rest of the school community. On the site, we have profiled just a few of these stories. In one case, a parent describes how she organized a phone tree for other parents of children with IEPs. Another was written by a parent who was concerned about the safety of the extensive renovation occurring at her school, and explains the efforts she took to ensure the process protected the health of students and staff. The piece on the creation of a halal-friendly lunch at a school in Brooklyn shows how the movement was started by a few parent members but was embraced by rest of the PA.
To read these success stories and for more information on advocacy by issue, see the Parent Advocacy section.
Parent advocacy can take many forms: a number of PA/PTAs establish committees that work on specific issues, though some schools prefer to create action groups as SLT committees. In others, certain parent advocacy groups are not officially connected to either the PA/PTA or SLT, but are simply stand-alone groups of parents organized around a specific issue. Often, parent groups call upon advocacy and community based organizations, as well as experts in a specific field, for guidance and support, and then work in tandem with these parties to achieve their goals. And, depending on the issue involved, parent groups sometimes enlist the support of elected officials as well.