With the elections looming, it feels like nobody out there cares about the truth, facts or collaborating in order to accomplish common goals. Everything is focused on the Nation, and how things will be drastically different if one candidate wins or loses. Contrary to popular belief, did you know that local politicians and local government agencies, such as school boards and county commissions have a much larger impact on our daily life? In fact, over the last several years there have been national special interest groups who run for local offices and boards, thereby politicizing entities that shouldn’t be politicized. Several school boards across the country have recently had these “outsider, special interest” candidates elected onto their boards simply because the voting public was unaware of who they were and what they stood for.
This very thing happened to the Jefferson County Colorado School Board, but fortunately there were some alert, intelligent moms out there who took notice and decided to make a change. One of these women was Shawna Fritzler. When she kept hearing about how much money the schools wasted, she decided to get a copy of the budget and analyze it for herself. She was shocked to discover that money in fact was not being wasted, and to the contrary, the school district was grossly underfunded. This led her to challenge politicians on both sides of the aisle, challenging everyone to leave politics out of school funding and to base everything instead on what was best for students. It became her mission to read all the information on both sides of the issues, and to educate everyone she could about anything that had to do with the schools and children in general.
The American public school system is truly the first building block in our society. Without an educated population, a democracy cannot stand. Without education, mental health support, safely and nutrition, the United States cannot flourish, nor can it remain competitive globally. Because Shawna felt so strongly about this, she took matters into her own hands and created an organization called Support Jeffco Kids. This organization is a place where everyone who supports public education can gather, share facts, discuss ideas and work together for the common good of all students. Even though it focuses on Jefferson County Colorado, the issues faces are the same in every school district, anywhere in the United States.
As this week’s guest, Shawna Fritzler says, child advocacy has become an extreme passion for me. These days, I hold no jobs other than volunteering, serving on school district and statewide committees, working on school funding initiatives and running my own education based nonprofit. As the mother of a 7th grader, I know the value of education and supporting public schools as well as working with partners and building coalitions with others. When I got involved in a mill and bond campaign for our school district in 2011, organized the parents of two different schools to flood a community meeting about funding cuts and was successful in attracting a news crew to do a story, it wasn’t long before I was contacted by other child and education advocates to get further involved.
I’m very fortunate to have gained hundreds of friends in advocacy along my journey. Each of them are highly educated, amazing advocates and have the drive and potential of being top child advocacy leaders in our state. I believe that this is the work we should all be doing, offering factual information to other parents, all while gathering additional voices to join us in our efforts to serve our children most completely. Joining together in advocacy is truly what will make a difference for our children. Through our involvement in legislation, we can ensure our children each have bright futures and the ability to reach their full potential.
Prior to earning my M.O.M., I worked a commercial real estate development, construction, and IT administration. I loved my career but I found my passion in child advocacy after having my daughter and believe serving children is a better use of my time.
Flaunt! Can be heard on Dreamvisions 7 Radio Network.
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