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Find Your Elected Representative

Every day, legislators in Sacramento make decisions that affect charter schools, both negatively and positively. In a democracy like ours, citizens have a voice in their government. We can vote, we can speak out and we can lobby our elected representatives. That means it is up to us to raise our voices and be advocates for our children and all California students!

We at Families That Can believe deeply in grassroots advocacy, which means shaping public policy from the bottom up. It happens when every day citizens, parents and students directly contact and influence their local elected representatives to describe the problems they are facing and propose solutions.

As a parent, you know what your child needs better than anyone else. Your personal story of why you chose a charter school for your child is more powerful than any lobbyist in showing your elected representative why he or she should support charter schools.

You are a grassroots advocate for charter public schools and you can help make a difference by encouraging others you know to take action as well, including:

Your family and friends
Your neighbors
Organizations you are involved with, especially school parent groups
Your children's teachers, coaches, or classmate's parents
Other people in your social circle, such as colleagues and those from business and organizations in your community, or your place of worship

Who are your elected representatives?

Elected officials, policy-makers and decision-makers are people elected to represent you who may be in a position to influence policies or legislation that affect charter public schools. For instance, school board members vote whether to approve new charter schools in the district or whether to allow existing charter schools to continue operating. State legislators in the Assembly and Senate make many of the laws that set how charter schools operate and they control how much funding public schools receive. There are elected officials at the level of the city, the county, the state and federal governments, so depending where you live, you likely have more than a dozen different politicians who represent you!

Examples of elected and appointed officials who represent you:

President
Members of Congress
Governor
Mayor
State Senators
State Assemblymembers
City Council Members
State Board of Education
School District Board of Education
County Board of Education