Successful Advocacy Strategies in Wake County Inspire
Imitation
Communities in Wake County, North Carolina have united
to establish an ambitious education goal for their schools
and students, “Goal 2008”, which aspires
to have 95 percent of students at or above grade level
by 2008, with all subgroups to show high growth in achievement.
These targets and community support for them have grown
through the annual Wake Education Summits, attended
each year by hundreds of county residents. Support for
the summits is so enthusiastic that organizers have
had to limit participation to 500 people at each event.
The organizing strategies and community-building processes
that education advocates in Wake County are using to
so effectively to engage the public in their public
schools are inspiring similar efforts in other locations,
including New York City.
Annual Wake Education Summits
The Wake County School District has about 114,000 students
and 7,000 teachers in 134 schools in 12 municipalities,
including Raleigh and Wake Forest. It is a fast-growing
county with increasing diversity.
At the summit two years ago, after a year-long community
feedback process, participants prioritized the feedback
results and, working with the school district, established
the Goal 2008. Since then, the summit has focused each
year on a different part of the Goal. Last year, it
addressed “Road Blocks on the Journey to 2008,”
how to overcome these road blocks, and high school reform
possibilities. The 2005 summit will explore recruiting,
retaining, and supporting high quality teachers to successfully
meet Goal 2008 in all Wake County schools.
The Summit Process
The Wake
Education Partnership (WEP), a local education fund
and affiliate of the Public
Education Network (PEN), provides the organizing
support for the summit each year, described for us by
Cyndi Soter O’Neil, WEP’s Director of Communications
& Research.
130 Hosts
The first step, six months in advance of each summit,
is to build a 12-15 person planning committee, the “summit
core team,” which includes community groups, community
based organizations (CBOs), several business representatives,
a teacher representative, and a PTA representative.
The team decides on the theme for the upcoming summit
and identifies materials for a briefing book that all
participants receive. The team also works as a recruitment
force to get other groups involved as participants and
for financial support. Last year, there were 40 business
hosts and 90 community hosts.
Logistics
A paid trainer coaches volunteer facilitators on both
facilitation strategies and the content of the specific
topics for the summit. Small group discussions, which
typically set priorities, are facilitated at each table.
Each year, WEP prepares and presents a report on the
previous year’s summit and the impact that it
has had on the schools. For example, county-wide programs
such as Readers to Achievers have come directly out
of the summit.
All input gathered at the summits is shared with key
decision-makers at the Wake County Public School System
and the Wake County Board of Education, and much of
the feedback has directly impacted key decisions by
these groups. In addition, previous summits have informed
the work of community agencies, businesses and other
groups concerned with maintaining high quality in Wake
County’s public schools.
Challenges
Although community satisfaction with the summits and
the process of organizing them is high – by now
they have built momentum – there are some skeptics.
WEP and the summit core team attempt to bring these
people into the process. Last year, for instance, they
reached out to the Hispanic community directly, included
interpreters at the summit, and succeeded in attracting
a significant group of non-English speaking participants
for the first time.
Prepared January 31, 2005
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