Join our statewide program where together we can leverage the grassroots power of our charter families to create charter school-friendly local authorizing environments and protect charter schools in the state Legislature.
What is CharterNation?
A comprehensive voter registration, education, and mobilization program that the California Charter Schools Association is providing to schools in order to increase family civic engagement, offer opportunities for students to learn about democracy, and empower charter parents to advocate for the educational choices that they want for their children.
The Problem
Decisions affecting charter schools are made on the local and state level on a daily basis, on everything from traffic lights to rulings on charter renewals. The charter school families affected by these decisions often have no involvement with the system making them. While the organizations that oppose charters have long-standing bases of power, the charter movement’s largest body of support, its parents, remain largely unorganized and often uninformed about its potential impact.
Recognizing that charter schools are often dealing with limited time and resources, the California Charter Schools Association seeks to partner with these schools and assist in this important organizing work. In addition to the one-on-one organizing and education that can
happen at the school site itself, CharterNation aims to bring each school’s families into the larger charter community.
Our Plan
To address this problem, CCSA has begun the formation of a comprehensive charter family database for CCSA Families organizing efforts, but also for protecting, growing, and educating the charter school community.
Built using the parent contact information provided by schools, CCSA can use the CharterNation database to contact parents on a larger scale and encourage them to:
- Register to vote, as well as inspire others to “get out the vote.”
- Become actively involved in issues in their local communities and neighborhoods.
- Take advantage of educational opportunities to enhance their knowledge of charter school policy, important elections, and legislative affairs.
Why Get Involved?
As a part of larger movement towards educational equity in California, we need each school,each community, and each organization to help get parents involved. Through one of the safe, legal, and efficient routes described here, your school can provide parent contact information for CCSA’s growing CharterNation database. Help us equip our parents with the tools to find their collective voice and use it to benefit their children and the charter school movement at large.
For more information, email us at charternation@ccsaadvocates.org.