Building Community Coalitions

Last month, our Civic Voices of DeSoto Fellows hosted a kickoff event for their community coalition, Impact DeSoto. Over 60 members of the DeSoto community turned out to talk about the issues facing DeSoto ISD and learn more about how they can elect high-quality school board leadership and hold them accountable to better outcomes for their students.

The coalition has since gathered questionnaire responses from Trustee candidates to help DeSoto voters understand each candidate's positions and priorities. Along with that, they provided a tool for assessing candidates' understanding of the role and commitment to proper governance: The Roles and Responsibilities of a Trustee and the 10 Criteria for Effective School Board Leadership. School board elections are coming up in many areas, so we encourage you to use this tool to evaluate candidates in your own district!

We are so proud of our Fellows for leading this work - nothing is more powerful than an informed and engaged electorate!