Following up on President Herbart’s announcement about our #RedForEd education funding advocacy, we’ll be sharing these updates regularly about how every member can be engaged in our efforts.

1) Postcards to Lawmakers

MEA and AFT Michigan are writing postcards to both chambers in support of the budget. We can ship out any number of cards and instruction sheets to you for local meetings and events – request can be made by emailing Jessica Lumbreras at jlumbreras@mea.org (be sure to let us know how many people you expect, where we should send the cards and when you need them by).

We plan to gather all the postcards and hand deliver them to legislative offices in June. Please do not mail them to legislative offices. If you have a group who cannot attend the June events at the Capitol, you may mail or deliver your postcards to HQ:

MEA
Attn: Sharon Janes
1216 Kendale Blvd.
East Lansing, MI 48826

And don’t forget to share sign-in sheets with us about who fills out postcards so we know who has been involved in our fight to Value Students, Respect Educators and Fund our Schools!

2) Reality Check Ideas – Social Media     

As part of the lead-up to the June events, we are asking for your help in holding #RedforEd Reality Checks and that will encourage public grassroots organizing for the budget. You can find descriptions of these activities here. Please take a moment to log your event here so we can track actions that are happening and share great ideas – some of which include:

• Meetings with Lawmakers
• Passing a School Board Resolution
• Informal Meetings/Coffee Klatches/House Parties
• Holding walk-ins/walk-outs
• Attending PTO Meetings
• Coalition Building
• Op-Eds and Letter to the Editors – or Talk to a Reporter
• Telling your Story on Social Media

On the last point, we’ve had several members share their stories on social media so far:

Clarkston EA President Testifies for Education Funding

Running into the Burning Building of Education

Retired Educator Supports Gov. Whitmer’s Budget

This is something every member can do – particularly talking about how the lack of education funding impacts students.  Class size, lack of materials, outsourcing, school safety, student nutrition, tuition hikes – there’s something every member can talk about – and that’s not even including the state of paychecks and the ability to recruit and retain great people into the education field.  Be sure to use hashtags #RedForEd and #RealityCheck on these posts.

P.S. – More next week about RSVPs for the June 18 and 25 events at the Capitol.  Stay tuned!