Movement Playbook: COSF Reflection
Background
There are nearly 14,000 public school districts in the United States. That means that in any given year nearly 30,000 school board elections are taking place around the country. These elections will determine the future of our kids’ education. School boards have the power to create welcoming, inclusive learning environments for our students to discover the world around them and reach their highest potential. But on the flip side, there are candidates in every state running for school board with the intention of banning books, silencing LGBTQ+ and minority voices, and injecting extremist politics into the classroom.
Challenge
The volume and size of school board elections make it difficult to look at past campaigns for a best practice guide. Dozens of votes can decide most races, and most individuals and organizations with relevant experience have not worked on such a hyperlocal level before.
Approach
As with all advocacy campaigns, if we’re willing to organize properly and have a gameplan, we can win. That’s why COSF created The Movement Playbook. This digital resource contains all the tools and knowledge needed to turn out a community for school board elections (and win!). It provides messaging, a glossary of commonly used terms, resources for talking with potential voters, and other tips to guide planning before, during and after elections. The playbook outlines all the essential information needed to elect all-star school board representatives.
The playbook includes an interactive course with tasks and checklists as well as a PDF version for easy review. The course breaks campaigns down into work done before, after, and during school board elections. Additionally, COSF hosted a training series led by staff dedicated to grassroots organizing. With these resources, community advocates received the tools to positively contribute to our children’s education one election at a time.
Results
After it first became publicly available in September 2023, The Movement Playbook was viewed more than 1,300 times by more than 750 unique visitors during the November 2023 school board elections. It continues to be the most visited page on COSF’s website. 21 national organizations attended a live playbook training session and agreed to distribute within their networks.
Examples of The Movement Playbook in action
Central Bucks, Pennsylvania
COSF worked closely with grassroots advocacy groups to create a GOTV phone banking program. We helped draft scripts and create a targeted phone list as well as create virtual phone banks. Additionally we conducted the initial training for the group to answer any questions and make any needed adjustments or edits prior to letting them run the program on their own.
We remained a resource for technology platforms and any other technical assistance they needed and let them run their program.
Connecticut
COSF provided voter resources to 7 statewide groups that were launching GOTV efforts around school board elections. Those groups filtered information to local organizations in districts all over the state.
Rockingham County, Virginia
Through emails, calls, and texts, COSF built a robust coalition of 127 people in a rural part of the state. 50 of those people became active volunteers making calls and participating in in-person events.
The deep canvassing program led to 40 hours of conversations with thousands of Rockingham voters.
Lessons
When more groups on the ground have access to year round training and technical assistance, it is easier to transition seamlessly to electoral organizing when school board races occur in the community.
Many best practices from organizing apply, but the organizers need to understand the nuance of a school board race means that personal contact is necessary. School board members usually represent the smallest constituency of any elected office in the community, so voters have the ability to become personally invested in the elections.
Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to identifying and training leaders in the community. The small electorate means that districts don’t necessarily need large coalitions to succeed.
Proper technology is important regardless of the size of the electorate. It is ideal to be able to track voter file, door knocking, text banking, and phone banking efforts in one centralized system that either runs everything or connects to different platforms.