WE BELIEVE IN TRUTH & TRANSPARENCY AT ALL LEVELS OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN LOUISIANA
About Us
Louisiana Save Our Schools began like most movements, with a simple conversation.
What started as two of us quickly became ten and by the end of the weekend it was twenty-five impassioned people! Rolling up our sleeves, we dug into the dusty corners of BESE's internet files. CRT was already here! Our group of grassroots activists grew, and the work multiplied. We investigated the organization behind the new social studies standards that BESE was proposing, Educating for American Democracy. Everything we found was terrifying. We launched an urgent social media campaign, shared information all over Facebook and by the meeting on June 26 in Baton Rouge, the Steering Committee was facing a room full of determined citizens, all opposed to the new draft of proposed standards. The people were standing up!! Meanwhile the group on Telegram continued to grow, reaching nearly 100 active members. A vision of working across the state, fighting back to save our schools, and thus our future organization was born.
Where to begin
From You to We.....
You are the starting place. We all have children and parents that are listening to us. At Louisiana SOS we believe that change begins with us. Talk to the people around you. Ask about what they are seeing in the schools their children and grandchildren attend. Listen to the answers, encourage them to get involved. Change begins one person at a time.
School Districts are governed at the Parish level. School Boards are less accountable and friendly as partisan politics rule the day. We cannot count on the school board member beliefs to guide their decisions. We can change that. It begins by attending every school board meeting. Every single one should have someone in attendance, monitoring what is said, what is presented, and who says it. Committee meetings are simply school board meetings by another name, attend those too. Speak at every meeting. Tell them that you want to know what textbooks are being used, what trainings are being given, and that the public is watching.
State government should only do what local government cannot accomplish, but is essential. In the educational world, over the years, local control has been eroded to the point that BESE has become a state-sponsored wolf that nips at the heels of good local teachers hounding and harassing them until they give in. The policies and procedures have been constructed to strip local control and make it nothing more than words on paper. THIS MUST CHANGE.
We must be diligent and watchful to discover where our schools have been taken off course, however we must be ready to stand in the gap on behalf of those good men and women who teach and serve the public for the right reasons. If we stand with them, linking arms, if we hold them up, they can stand fast, and they can stand strong, because we are stronger together.
