School Holding Power
Strategies for Individual Action

Community Capacity

• Direct my LULAC chapter to engage, educate and empower all parents in our community.
• Develop a plan of action to address dropout rate.
• Create gatherings of parents and superintendents, convened by community-based organizations.
• Empower parents to support laws that protect and support the equality and education of all students.

Actionable Knowledge

• Work on information systems that produce better and more reliable data, and that enable educators to keep track of the progress of individual students and address their specific needs.
• Commit to taking data collected (at the summit) to our communities and asking them to come together to demand children’s education as a priority to lawmakers and school officials.

Coalition Building/Partnerships

• Meet with fellow LULAC councils to share our findings and strategies; engage PTAs and trustee boards in addressing the issue with LULAC.
• Build support for K-16 partnerships.
• Promote dialogue between parents, high school teachers and staff, college officials and resource organizations about high school graduation and college attendance.

School Capacity

• Put school holding power goals at the forefront of education meetings, emphasizing the relationship, relevance and rigor for secondary school students.
• Press for education systems to move from goals to reality – that every student will finish high school with a diploma and that we fulfill the federal promise of the No Child Left Behind Act.
• Raise academic standards for all students, eliminating achievement gaps.
• Do the “right thing” as a school board leader.
• Expand and encourage parent and community stakeholder involvement in schools.

Student Engagement

• Plant “graduation seeds” into the minds of my students and commit to serving as a scaffold – a palanca for them throughout their education, not just in the 1.5 years that I will serve them directly.
• Make sure youth in middle school and high school are knowledgeable of all information needed to graduate from high school and go on to college.