- We dramatically increase parental participation in LSCOs by working closely with school principals and LSCO leadership.
- We establish relationships with city officials who then meet with parents and listen to their concerns and complaints about city services.
- We galvanize LSCOs by effectively facilitating parental meetings with appropriate officials to address issues of safety, blight, crime and other conditions that harm children's ability to learn.
- We bring elementary school principals together to strategize about improving security in and around school buildings.
- We work with parents, neighborhood groups, and school and law-enforcement officials to address gang-related activity and recruitment.
- We work with LSCOs, principals and teachers to stage regular events honoring academic achievement by schoolchildren. The events have been well attended by parents.
- We mobilize community cleanups of school grounds.
- We are organizing parents and citizens to voice concern about the impact of school closures on the community. Read the Detroit News article about the protest against the closing of Chadsey High School.
To learn more about our school-based organizing projects, contact Bill O'Brien, director of community partnerships, at 313.841.8900 x. 2339 or email him. | |
- We have significantly increased parental participation in the LSCOs in southwest Detroit and brought city officials to the table. Read the LA Times article about Bill O'Brien and the school-based organizing efforts he is facilitating.
- At Phoenix Academy, organizers Raquel Castenada, Jessie Klein and Libby Samanen worked with a few local parents to grow the parents’ organization from 3 people to 45 people. See photos of a meeting of Phoenix parents and city officials in March 2009.
- At Roberto Clemente Academy, the parents' organization grew from a handful of parents participating to where more than 200 parents and children came to a major meeting attended by the mayor and city officials. See photos of this meeting at Clemente in December 2008.
- As a result of the organizing effort among parents at Roberto Clemente Academy, the city responded to citizen complaints about unsafe and unclean conditions for schoolchildren and families in the neighborhood. 26 wild dogs were impounded. Street and underpass lights were fixed. Trash piles in vacant lots were removed. Five abandoned houses were torn down and others were boarded up. Potholes in streets near the school were fixed. Read and hear the WDET story about Clemente parents getting stray dogs impounded.
- Terry Whitfield, Vanita Mistry and other organizers mobilized 180 people from 8 different schools who went to Detroit’s City Council in February 2009 to protest the city's failure to attend to dangerous buildings near their schools.
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Organizing Overview
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