Step 5

Get Involved

Use Your Voice

Tap into the power of social media. The NSBA has provided a set of action steps to help you get the word out about Stand Up 4 Public Schools.

Engage the Media

Again, if you are a local school board member or administrator, before you start, be certain to coordinate with your district public affairs office to ensure that the steps you plan to take align with existing communications protocols.

Public advocacy is dependent on successful media relations. Communicating messages to large numbers of people rapidly is dependent on effective media engagement.

Reporters and editors work on deadline – what the media need most are credible sources able to help them get a story right today. The news waits for no one. If you are not responsive to reporters’ deadlines, they will bypass you for an alternate source able to meet their short-term deadlines.

Are you operating independently, or as part of a group? If independently, you may opt to “narrowcast” your outreach by targeting a select group of media who have written on your topic. If you are part of a group, you may opt to “broadcast” your outreach to a wide range of media outlets.

Below we highlight four types of routine media engagement – a media interview, a press release (PR), a press conference, and a Letter to the Editor (LTE). We share tips for preparing for a media interview, and NSBA samples of a PR, press conference invitation, and LTE.

Tips for media interviews

First. Nothing is off the record. Do not make a comment that you are not willing to see on air, online or in print.

Second, never go into a media interview "cold." What is your main point? What are the two to three “proof points” that reinforce your main point? How can you restate/summarize your main point at the close of the interview to reinforce it? Never guess. If you do not have 100 percent confidence in an answer, tell the journalist you don’t know the answer, and then offer to get back to the journalist if deadlines permit.

Do not answer a "baited" question: If the question itself is hostile, attempts to put words in your mouth, or is otherwise off track, correct the question itself in your response. The key to an effective interview is always advance practice and ownership. Prepare your responses in advance, and take control of the dialogue. If the interview veers off course, bring it back to your key messages (this is called “bridging”) to exercise message discipline and reinforce important content.

Monitor Legislative Activity in Congress

Keeping pace with legislative activity at national, state, and local levels enhances your ability to serve as an informed and credible public spokesperson. In addition to taking time to become familiar with the legislative process in your state legislature and in your local community, it is important that you become familiar with the federal legislative process as well. Several easily accessible online resources are available to you to monitor federal legislation. However, arguably the most well-known is THOMAS that enables you to track federal legislation by subject, bill number, or the sponsoring member of Congress.

We also encourage you to visit the NSBA website as a public resource that offers short summaries on key elementary and secondary education issues as well as key education legislation that has been formally introduced within Congress. Posted summaries are updated throughout the legislative process from introduction to final enactment by the U.S. Congress. The NSBA website will help you to keep pace with active federal legislation on education policy, programs, funding, and much more.

The NSBA site also gives you a current view of issues that affect local school board governance. Members of Congress may introduce federal bills around this important topic. One example of federal legislation related to local school board governance introduced by a member of Congress during the First Session of the 113th Congress is Local School Board Governance and Flexibility (H.R. 1386). Passed by the House of Representatives, this bill proposes to reverse the current overreach of the federal government in public education by requiring the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to be more responsive to local school board concerns when issuing federal regulations. Further, the bill would prohibit ED from making policy in the absence of specific federal legislation. It would also preclude ED from placing unfunded and unrelated conditions on federal grants and prevent ED from exercising authority over local school boards.

Learn about critical legislative initiatives – such as academic standards, student testing, school safety, charter schools, vouchers, child nutrition, programs for students with disabilities, students living in high concentrations of poverty, rural schools, and much more – at www.nsba.org/Advocacy.

Track School Law

Our legal advocacy efforts – the most prolific and successful of any Washington-based education group – are weighing in on more cases that impact public schools. Our arguments have been cited in numerous key decisions, including by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Visit https://www.nsba.org/SchoolLaw to become familiar with school law issues and gain a view of recent amicus (friend of the court) briefs that NSBA has filed at state and federal court levels. NSBA files more amicus briefs to the Supreme Court each year than all other education associations combined.

The reason we do so? To protect America’s schoolchildren: Resources spent defending lawsuits against public schools are resources not available for the education of children. Learn more at www.nsba.org/SchoolLaw/AmicusBriefs.

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