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Communications Toolkit: Protect Public Schools

Protect Public Schools
Want to use your voice to protect our students and public schools? We’ve created messaging guidance and communications tools to get you started!

What's in this toolkit

  • Current actions to protect our schools
  • Messaging Dos and Don'ts
  • Links to issue-specific communications toolkits
  • Resources for union organizing
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When We Unite, We Win

Together with parents and allies, we have the power to defeat the effort to dismantle our public schools. We can stop a handful of anti-public education politicians who support an agenda that will have devastating consequences for our students, families, and educators. Our union has stopped attacks on public education before, and we stopped voucher proposals at the ballot box in November. 

This guide is designed to help you spread the word about the movement to protect our students, public schools, and each other, as well as the actions we can take to stand up for students, educators, and our communities. 

Use this guide—and the related, issue-specific guides highlighted on this page—to better reach and mobilize your audiences. 

A crowd of people holding various signs about supporting public education.

Don't Miss the Protect Our Kids Day of Action on March 4th!

The Protect Our Kids campaign is mobilizing educators, parents, students, and community allies to fight against devastating cuts to public education. You can bring the impact home and organize a local event in your community such as a rally, teach-in, or press conference to help spread our message and amplify the voices of those impacted.

Messaging Do's & Don'ts

Do
Put faces and names on issues, including sharing the cost for students, educators, and communities when public education and related support are gutted.
Don't
Just share a laundry list of programs and institutions that are at risk.
Because
Many people don’t connect the dots between policies and the impact they have on our students, educators, and communities. Pell Grants, IDEA, and Title I are popular because they help people succeed. When we start with the people and how policies impact them, it is easier to connect our fight to the concrete impact in our own backyards.
Do
Be aspirational. Remind audiences of our values and what we know is possible for our children through public schools.
Don't
Succumb to hopelessness. It’s important to share the news, but we want to ensure we don’t overwhelm people rather than inspiring them to act.
Because
It is easy to feel powerless, but when we unite, we win. These threats have happened before, and we have successfully beaten them back. We are excited to protect public schools so we can realize our shared vision for the future of public education.
Do
Name and place the burden of responsibility on the leaders who must choose to either help or harm public schools when they vote on budgets and policies.
Don't
Forget to name the larger why: Our schools are being targeted to fund another tax cut for billionaires and their friends.
Because
Contextualizing the threats against public education places the burden of responsibility on those in power and delegitimizes billionaires who seek profit over policies that benefit our communities.

Communications Toolkits

Find message guidance, social media graphics, sample campaign copy, and more.
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Speak Out for Public Schools & Students

We are coming together to protect public schools for all students, educators, and communities. Use your voice to talk about the movement and mobilize your audiences.
Access the toolkit
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Push Back Against Executive Overreach

Want to use your voice to ensure our government retains its system of checks and balances? We’ve created messaging guidance and communications tools to get you started!
Access the toolkit
USED

Protect Essential Programs for Students

Stop the push to dismantle the Department of Education and find resources to help educate audiences about its role in our schools.
Access the toolkit
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Protect Undocumented Children’s Right to Access Public Education

All students have a right to enroll in public school, regardless of their immigration status. Use this message guidance and tools to help educators and allies not only defend students’ rights to obtain a public education but to keep them safe from harmful immigration policies.
Access the toolkit Find more immigration resources
Teacher stands in front of classroom and calls on students with raised hands

Protect School Funding

Vouchers take scarce funding away from our neighborhood public schools—where 90% of students go—and give it to private schools that are unaccountable to taxpayers. This guide can help you spread the word about the harmful effect of vouchers on public schools.
Access the toolkit

Step Up for Schools

Take Action Now

Looking for more ways to take action?

See all Actions

Share These Links

We will keep this section updated with important actions and articles for you to share with your community.
students in classroom

How Dismantling the Department of Education Would Harm Students

Educators and parents will not stand for the destruction of our country’s commitment to equal educational opportunities for all students.
Learn More & Share
Protect Public Schools Rally

Rally to Protect Public Schools and Students

Educators, parents and leaders stand against the Trump administration’s overreach and his nominee for the U.S. Department of Education that threaten public education and the students they serve.
Learn more & share
10 diverse high school students sit outside on a bench

Guidance on Immigration Issues

The second Trump Administration will have a large impact on immigration policies affecting students, schools, and communities. Here's what you need to know to prepare.
Learn More & Share
A young male child with close-cut blonde hair in a mint green cartoon shirt takes a serving of carrot sticks as they make selections from fresh, nutritious looking food on their school's lunch line.

We Want to Hear from You

If you have seen or fear impacts on your school and students, we want to hear from you. We may share your story online, in the press, and with members of Congress to illustrate the real, tangible harm anti-education politicians and their billionaire friends are causing.

Learn More

Do More

Your Rights and Workplace

When educators are heard, respected, and given the resources we need, we can give our students our very best. NEA provides information to help you access fair pay and fair benefits.
illustration of 4 adults in stages of organizing for the union, such as calling out with a megaphone, holding up a sign, knocking on doors

Unions & Educator Voice

Much like your union bulletin board at school, this space is your home for all things union organizing. Here you will find the tools and resources you need to learn about and get involved with your union.
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Great public schools for every student

The National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest professional employee organization, is committed to advancing the cause of public education. NEA's 3 million members work at every level of education—from pre-school to university graduate programs. NEA has affiliate organizations in every state and in more than 14,000 communities across the United States.
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