If I understand correctly, you're asking how to become an insider in your local bureaucracy, yes?
Well, two things to know--
1. They may not accept you because you're an outsider (if this is true), and
2. If you don't already have a clear agenda, and some reason for wanting to change things in a particular direction, be prepared for a LOT of nosy questions and suspicion. Rightly so, probably. Anyone who simply wants to be influential... probably deserves some of that scrutiny.
I serve on a couple of different county and state boards-- for other things, but similar structurally to the school way of doing things, and many of my colleagues/peers are teachers with an educator-mindset. My advice to you is to wait and keep your ears open-- learn the insider language and thinking that you'll need to have to "pass" as one of them. They won't trust you enough to let you in the door otherwise. Heck, our school has not trusted ME enough to let me in the door, and frankly... I pass as one of them. Educators are a highly insular lot, generally speaking, and many of them have negative experiences with people who have NEVER actually done their jobs trying to tell them HOW to do them... so they do tend to only want people with that background and experience in the door, because most other people are in it for... well, other reasons, and often are operating from a position of relative ignorance as well. Crusaders, basically.
They may not let you in anyway, if you seem to have ideas that are too radical, too alarming, etc. If you're too aggressive, too smart, or too willing to call things out that everyone else prefers to ignore... Honestly, your odds probably aren't very good unless you have a history of advocacy in similar systems. It takes a lot of persistence and a certain amount of political savvy to get insider status. It causes alarm when outsiders get into the lounge with them, and the gatekeeping is pretty significant as a result.
I guess my question for you is-- your child is in first grade, and presumably things are going reasonably well or you'd have asked for something more specific about advocacy. Why do you WANT in at this point? Is it so that you will have a handy way to "fix" things as they come up? To improve things in general? If so, how do you know what needs fixing? To maintain a position of authority in this (new to you) venue?
What is it that you see as being in desperate need of change-- and needing YOU in particular?
Being honest about your reasons might shed some light on the course of action. If your reasons are undefined, my recommendation is for you to do some research to find out what IS needed at a regional/state level, and to define what you think you have to contribute to solving that problem (or those problems). Your initial post leads me to think that one of two things is true locally; either you haven't had enough experience (yet) to know where the problems are locally, or there are not major issues locally.
Last edited by HowlerKarma; 04/22/14 08:52 AM.
