Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Advocacy Alert #3 for Florida’s School Counselors

Advocacy Alert #3  for Florida’s School Counselors-
From the Desk of LeAnn Pollard, FSCA Advocacy Committee

Do you have your legislative contact list ready?  If you are still working to compile the contact list for your area, remember to review the last two FSCA Advocacy Alerts for step-by-step direction.  I’ve given you an example of my contact list below. You will also be adding addresses, email and phone numbers to your list.

Example Contact List
By going to the Florida Senate and the Florida House of Representatives websites I was able to compile this list of legislators for the greater Jacksonville (Duval County) area:

Florida House of Representatives (Districts 12-19)
Janet Adkins (District 12, R)
Daniel Davis (District 13, R)
Mia Jones (District 14, D)
Reggie Fullwood (District 15, D)
Charles McBurney (District 16, R)
Lake Ray (District 17, R)
Ronald “Doc” Renuart (District 18, R)
Michael “Mike” Weinstein (District 19, R)

Florida Senators
Anthony “Tony” Hill (District 1, D)
John Thrasher (District 8, R)

Congressional Districts 3 & 4
Corrine Brown (District 3, D)
Ander Crenshaw (District 4, R)

For your contact list, you’ll also include contact information such as address, phone number, and email and don’t forget FAX numbers too!

I know from my recent visit to the election polls (and by reading my voter registration card) the legislators who represent my home address are:  Lake Ray, John Thrasher, and Ander Crenshaw.  I will especially want to maintain close contact with these three because their names are on my ballot!  The rest of the names on my contact list represent the Duval County Public Schools attendance area. Their decisions affect my students!  I will also add the names and contact information for my local School Board members (especially Fred Lee because I allowed him to put a sign in my yard for 3 weeks!)

FSCA Advocacy team members will be giving you many ideas in the future weeks about what to do with your contact list.  For now, use it for introducing yourself to YOUR elected representatives!

     ** While working for a public agency, you should consider that all correspondence, whether by e-mail, written or otherwise is a public document and subject to public records requests by anyone who requests the information. For this reason, FSCA strongly recommends you do all advocacy correspondence from your personal (home) computer and not linked through a school district server.

Advocacy Alert #2 for Florida’s School Counselors

Advocacy Alert #2  for Florida’s School Counselors-
From the Desk of LeAnn Pollard, FSCA Advocacy Committee

In the last Advocacy Alert, we explored the Florida Senate website and began working to develop a personal advocacy contact list.  I want to continue by introducing you to the Florida House of Representatives website and show you how it can be used to locate additional information about representatives, House Committees, and Bills in the House.
  1. Locate the Florida House of Representatives website www.myfloridahouse.gov

    Mark this site as a “favorite” for future reference.
2.            From “Home” you will notice many links; find “Representatives” and double-click to see an alphabetical listing of all Florida Representatives.  When you drag your mouse over the name of the Representative, you will see an information box pop up.  There is a photo, along with contact information for each representative in the state.
  1. I used this information to update the personal advocacy contact list started last time from the senate website.  In some cases, the information was the same.  I did like having the photos available so that I can recognize faces when I visit Tallahassee in the Spring.
  1. Additional information on this site includes links to Committees.  In the House, there are several committees related to the work of education in our state:  Appropriations PK-12, Appropriations Higher Education, Education (K-20 Competitiveness), Education (K-20 Innovation).  We will explore more about the work of each of these different committees later.  
  1. Continue to explore the My Florida House website and look for the Committee links (later the names of the committee members will be listed, once appointments are made).  See if you can find other helpful information like, “How to track a bill?”
  1. Now is a good time to send an introductory letter or email to your legislators.  Tell them about yourself and your work as a school counselor.  Include information (data) about a problem in your district or state such as graduation rates, number of students per school counselor, etc.  Use the FSCA Advocacy platform points for assistance to make your point.  Give your contact information and encourage a response from the lawmaker.


     ** While working for a public agency, you should consider that all correspondence, whether by e-mail, written or otherwise is a public document and subject to public records requests by anyone who requests the information. For this reason, FSCA strongly recommends you do all advocacy correspondence from your personal (home) computer and not linked through a school district server.

Advocacy Alert #1 for Florida’s School Counselors

Advocacy Alert #1  for Florida’s School Counselors-
From the Desk of LeAnn Pollard, FSCA Advocacy Committee

Now is the time for Florida’s School Counselors to build an advocacy foundation that will support lobbying efforts in the New Year 2011!  I’d like to offer some helpful tips to get you started and to help you establish your own personal advocacy contact list that I know you will be using frequently once the legislative session begins.
  1. Begin by visiting the Florida Senate website at www.flsenate.gov  and add this to your list of favorites so that you can find it quickly.
  2. From the “Home” page of the Florida Senate website, look in the left side column for a button labeled “Senators”.  Double-click on “Senators” and you will be linked to a helpful directory page.
  3. Use this directory search to find a list of your Florida Senators, Representatives, and Congressional legislators simply by entering your home zip code.  For those who live in one city or county and work in different city/county it would be beneficial to search both zip codes to create an all-inclusive list for your advocacy work.  Using this directory search feature will give you names and contact information for all legislators representing the districts in the zip code, as well as district maps.
  4. Create a list of your own by copying and pasting the contact information from this directory into a blank document in Word or Excel.  Later, create an email list in your Outlook or Yahoo email contact list from this information.** (see caution below)
  5. Return to “Home” on the Florida Senate website and take some time to become familiar with some of the other links such as “Committees”.  Identify how to link to the vitally important committees connected to education such as: Education PK-12 (ED), Educational PK-12 Appropriations (EA), Higher Education (HE), and Higher Education Appropriations (HI).  Later, after committee appointments are made, you will want to identify which senators are on these committees!
     ** While working for a public agency, you should consider that all correspondence, whether by e-mail, written or otherwise is a public document and subject to public records requests by anyone who requests the information. For this reason, FSCA strongly recommends you do all advocacy correspondence from your personal (home) computer and not linked through a school district server.