001Um, my name is Logan Noel Andress. I am your new director of strategic advocacy for those who weren't here last month. Um, and we are really looking forward today to spending some time with you um, chatting about the legislative impact toolkit um, which is a newer resource from WASDA um, that came out just about a year ago. Um, we are going to be spending the next two or three LED network meetings really diving deep into that toolkit just making sure that we are uh arming you with all of the resources um that you need to best advocate as lead reps. Um, quick intro to our team. Uh, I'm Logan. I just introduced myself. Leavon, do you want to um introduce yourself to the group? Hey everyone, Leavonne Williams here, the advocacy and policy analyst at
002WASDA. Thank you for joining us today. Great. Thanks, Leavonne. Um before we dive into um our toolkit, um we just wanted to take a couple of minutes and just reorient you to our year round um advocacy cycle. Um but just a quick overview of what we're going to do today um is dive into that, spend some time looking at the toolkit. Um Leavonne is going to lead y'all through about 30 minutes of a really great interactive presentation. Um we're going to chat a little bit about general assembly, reviewing our timeline as we have some key dates and exciting things happening um between now and our next gathering and then we'll go ahead and wrap it up. Um so I just want to remind you per usual um that advocacy happens all the time and we
003hope that since our last ledger network meeting you've taken some time to rest and reflect on the outcomes from the 2025 session. Um, if you haven't seen it yet, um, hopefully you have, but if you have not, um, we have our, uh, 2025 legislative session summary, um, document that is available for you to peruse. Um, I just dropped that link in the chat that came out a couple of weeks ago. Um, would encourage you to take a look at that if you haven't yet. Um, but at WASDA, um, you can see by our arrow that we're sort of in the middle of two sections right now. um and that we're entering the period of prep for all things General Assembly scheduled to occur later this fall on September 20th. Um, you're going to hear this
004a lot from us, but we are, of course, encouraging every school board to participate at General Assembly and to use your voices to help shape our advocacy platform to ensure that we're best prepared to enter the next legislative session and really keep pushing on some of our key areas that uh we have lots of need and saw a little progress for during the last session. Um, one week from today on July 1st, uh, the first iteration of the general assembly handbook will be released. Um, and this version will include all of the position proposals that came forward from WASDA membership and WASDA committees. Um, so just sort of flagging that. We will dive into that um, topic a little bit deeper at the end of the meeting. Um, and essentially what we're going to do
005now is transition to Leavonne. Um, who's going to dive into our legislative impact toolkit. Um, so Leavonne, I'm going to pass it over to you. I'll monitor the chat. Um, for all of you, if you have questions, don't hesitate to jump in, raise your hands, throw them in the chat. I'm here to support you. And Leavonne, the mic is yours. Um, thank you and uh for bearing with me. Um, once again, I know we're short on time right now, but um, good afternoon. Uh, my name is Leavon Williams. I'm really excited to be here. Uh, today we'll be discussing part one of our series. Uh, stepping into your advocacy role. Uh, for those who haven't met me, I'm Leavonne Williams. I'm the advocacy and policy analyst at WASDA. Uh, before joining WAZA, I spent uh,
006some years doing public policy, uh, community engagement, and building coalitions. um and advocating for for climate justice and and educational equity. Um so the work that I've done was really focused on um school districts and supporting students of colors and families throughout uh the state of Washington. Um so today you're here to really um start the series of which is somewhat a foundational uh component to advocacy work is understanding your role as a school board member or as a leg le legislative representative um and how can you step into that advocacy work and and really having competence clarity and strategy. Um I talked about this at the previous uh ledge rep network meeting. Um folks are are at different journeys of their advocacy um advocacy stance and I think that you know deepening your impact
007and understanding this toolkit would really uh help you get there to feel somewhat empowered and prepared and connected to build trust um for stronger engagement with legislators. So today um here's the agenda. We'll look at why the interim matters, right? This period is is somewhat underestimated. Um it's one of like the most powerful times to advocate. I would say legislators are probably decompressing, but they're they're still engaging with their community, right? they are either at their own districts um have time and availability to meet with folks um you know they're really open to hearing from schoolboard members. I would say this is a really important time um and as you can see on the agenda we'll we'll go into exploring the role as a legislative representative. Um what does that mean? what are you responsible
008for and how to be effective uh when you're um presenting legislative updates at at your board meetings and um also connecting with with lawmakers or collaborating with your superintendent. It really gives insight on your role in in bridging that um advocacy at the local um the local and federal level. So, um, next we'll dive into part one of the legislative, um, impact toolkit. And then lastly, we'll have like a closing reflection and some questions to to kind of give you an exit ticket as we uh, move on. Could could someone please mute mute their uh their mics, Logan? I'm not able to Someone's off mute. I'm on it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, right. Why advocate in the interim? Um, I would say the interim really is a time to create space and build those
009relationships. Uh, I would, you know, during a legislative session, it could be somewhat impossible to get even five minutes or 15 minutes with legislators. They could be busy from, uh, you know, hearing votes, stakeholder meetings. Um but during this time in interim you you have time to connect with them. Uh you know I talked about this at the previous um ledge rep network meeting but another way to engage with them is you know schedule time with them over coffee invite them to do a school tour uh attend a community event. Um you know the goal is not here to like lobby during the interim but is a chance to build those strong uh relationships. you get a chance to show them who you are, what your school is really facing. Um, and you could talk,
010you know, why your role as a ledge rep uh really matters. And I think that builds some authentic engagement, um, and trust, um, with those legislators. Um, as you can see, the second bullet point, um, you know, during that time, legislators are are talking to constituents, right? They're attending local forums. they're reflecting on what worked on last session, what didn't work, what to problem solve for the upcoming session. Um, so I would say your voice really matters and your stories and also you know your district's um experiences could help shape uh what makes um you know what makes it onto their list of priorities during the upcoming legislative session. It's really about authentic engagement and and and building strong relationships with legislators. Um, and I think, you know, the interim is a chance to to
011reflect and prepare, right? Uh, take a take a moment to look back at um what really paid off last session. Um, where did you struggle, you know, to gain traction? Um, you know, what's new in your district? What's the hot topic? What what really deserves a lot of attention um at the at the in the interim and also at the upcoming um session. So, this is your time once again to build um your advocacy, I guess, legs. Um and, you know, you can collect some some stories and dig into your data for your district. Um try to find two to three different, you know, pressing issues that you can share with legislators. I think that builds stronger community uh with folks. So if you if you really start now engaging with legislators, you don't you
012won't find yourself like scrambling dur during the session to trying to figure out like where do I start, right? It could be somewhat of an intimidating process, but uh we're here to help you to support you to feel to make sure you feel empowered um during the legislative process. Okay? Right. Um, you know, advocacy is a year- round cycle, as you can see on the chart. Um, we are here, uh, May through July. Um, we we talked a little bit about understanding the importance of the interim. Um, so we're going to turn our attentions to this advocacy calendar, which is a a really a great tool to give you an outline of what to expect for the entire year. Um, so the legislative calendar moves really fast. I would say once session starts from January
013through March or sometimes even April when there's a short session or a longer session. Um, you know during this time bills are introduced, debated and amended um, voted on. Uh, it's it's really a busy time. Uh, hence this was my first session at WASDA. things move really fastly. Um, and I would say it's really hard to to get um to get a cadence if you don't, you know, if you don't have a rhythm and know where to start. So, I think this tool outlines all of that. Um, that's why right now in the interim, you know, months before session in 2026, you know, this is where all of the real strategy happens. Um, you know, legislators are, like I said, they have time. They're at their home districts. They're attending events. They're in the community.
014They're talking to their constituents. So, they're gathering feedback. Um, I think you could have a great 30 minute co coffee conversation instead of feeling like you're rush during the legislative session. Um, and you know, you you you can have a cadence, right? I I wish I would have had time to kind of start during an interim, but um you know and knowing what to expect and kind of building conditioning myself to to how to prep for LED session, but this is the an extremely important part um of advocacy. Um so I talked a little bit about the calendar review. Um just reflecting on the summer from June through August. Obviously you're trying to do outreach and be visible to legislators. Uh please invite them, you know, to walk through your schools. Um and to attend.
015I know graduation session just ended. Um um but you know, these are things to reflect on as you're trying to build uh relationships with legislators. um try to put a face to a name um instead of just emailing them during this time. Uh like I said, it build authentic relationships and and um they could hear your voice. And I I think that's a strong way to advocate for your for your school districts. So, shifting gears a little bit, fall through October is really when things start to happen. You want to uh I would say align your board and your community around like two to three advocacy priorities. Uh like what is your district focused on next year? Uh whether that's funding school meals or uh special education um or support for mental health services, school
016safety is another one. Um I think this is a time to collect those amazing stories during that time frame from fall through October. um to to kind of pivot into November through December, which is really all about strategy and preparing for Ledge session. Um I'm trying to give you like an overview of what I see impactful and how how you prep uh you know for the year round advocacy. um you know, thinking about uh the time when all the pre-builds were filed, um they started to appear on a in a Washington state legislative website. Um that's when agenda start to solidify. Um you know, you you you can use that time as the the pre-builds are being solidified to circle back with legislators from, you know, all of the advocacy work that you put in
017over over the interim and leading up to session. Um, and then, you know, January hits, you're in legislative session. Um, at this point, you really want to be strategic and have your priorities um, somewhat solidified and polished. Um, make sure you have some, you know, your priorities cleared and, you know, your community and your voices is ready, you're ready to engage um, during the session. Um, right? like it feels like you won't be playing catch-up as as you're doing all of this advocacy work during the interim. So um wanted to share the highlevel um you know overview of like what does the year round advocacy look like. Um you know um finally as I conclude this slide I think is important to you know as you're rolling up your sleeves is you know ask yourself
018have you built uh those strong relationships with legislators? Do you have a timeline or checklist? Have you assigned roles? Um, what does your outreach and tracking bills look like? Um, who's preparing student voices? Uh, are there any board resolutions? Uh, you know, rolling up your sleeves really means taking ownership of the process. Um, we're really here to support you dur during the the legislative and the legislative session and the interim. Um but um we are we we want you to feel empowered and um move forward throughout the process. So um you don't have to do this alone. WA is here to support you with the tools, the resources, the trainings, the network of peers and and really to help you uh move this work across the state. So I I think that's extremely important. Um
019so just you know start early, stay organized. um when the time comes, roll up your sleeve and and really um ground yourself in in the advocacy work for your school districts. Okay. Um how to ledge rep during an interim? Um I you know look at I I would say it starts with strong communication and alignment. um you are the board's point person for the legislative information. Um it's really your job to follow uh the directors um and and making sure they're in a loop and prepared to take action. Um you know here is a road map uh you know you could share you know here are road mapaps of some things you can do. you could share monthly uh LNR presentations like this one that I'll you know gladly share with folks. Um you know
020WADA provides some updates during the session as you know. Um you could pred pres present all of that information at your your board meetings or written summaries of it. Um you could report on legislative activities. You can give like your board a short update of things and also you can identify a general assembly delegate. Uh this person um you know during this time will cast your district vote uh at the general assembly. Uh which shapes was the legislative platform. Uh another way of how to ledge rep um I would say is facilitating discussions about your your district priorities. So use WA's platform legislative priority platforms as basically as a foundation right like what applies to you what is missing uh then off of that I would highly encourage folks to create an action plan right
021uh maybe one person can handle the legislators you know the communication with legislators another can coordinate with student engagement and another person could track bills as well on top of the resources that already uh present to folks. Um so lastly I think um for this slide is um the the ledge rep outreach strategies. Uh it's it's in the toolkit. Um this really is a detailed like practical um I guess steps to to um it's like a phone script, right? It could be an email template. It's a checklist. Um it it ensures that you're following a timeline. Um so I know this is a lot of information, but I don't want folks to feel like they're expected to know everything. Um you are expected to be the connector. um between your board, your district, the state
022level, the federal level, showing up regularly and and sharing information um will really uh build the rhythm um that makes this work sustainable during legislative session. Uh this is another way to engage with legislators attending a town hall. Um this already happened obviously, but I just wanted to to share and and give insight on this. Um, I believe your power as an as an advocate is is rooted in the relationship building. You're going to hear me talk and harp on relationships, right? Um, build those relationships with your legislators, know your legislators, um, this really is a slide. Um, is a to-do list, right? You know, you want to uh, attend town halls um, and subscribe to newsletters. Um you want to know the committee assignments and their backgrounds whether they're on the educational committees or
023the budget committees. Um you know initi sorry you want to initiate uh a connection right call or text um your legislator. Um, and like I said, when you meet up with them for a coffee or or tea, I think that's perfect. Uh, make sure you ask the questions, like share what's happening in your district. Uh, really don't really don't worry about um having like a perfect script written out as you're meeting with legislators. I think just be yourself, be human, be real. I must admit I was extremely nervous meeting with legislators, but we forget all the time. They are normal normal people. So, um they're elected officials, but at the end of the day, they're just um normal people. Um so, try to try to connect to that as you're going through this process. And
024just to make sure, you know, you don't feel overly intimidated. Um and you know, like I said, invite them to your schools, right? Storytelling is the most compelling form of advocacy, I would say. um and you're sharing these rich experiences with legislators. So, they will remember that um when they're debating bills during session. So, I'll leave you with this from this slide. As you get to know them, ensure that your voice is heard um and make sure you're um yeah, don't be afraid to share uh rich information that could impact your district and uh during legislative session. Um, so let's uh let's uh take I would say I guess looking at I talked a little bit about this. I kind of want to move on from that one. I think folks get the concept of
025building relationships with legislators, attending town halls. I don't want to regurgitate the same information. Um, but something that's really exciting about the toolkit, um, as we shift gears now on page 38 to 41, uh, is is community engagement. Um, I think building, um, you know, strong community engagement with legislators is really important. Um, it goes back to to your voice. um when your message comes not just from you but it you know if legislators hear from parents, teachers, students, uh local partners, I think it carries a lot of more a lot more weight than just yourself. Um on the legislative toolkit on page 38, it really outlines uh some strategies you can use. So I want to dig into those uh really quickly. There's some surveys and questionnaires, ways that you can ask your community,
026you know, whether you're looking at policies or resources for your students. Uh, another way is to leverage uh your social media. So, you could share what's happening in your district through Instagram. You really want to humanize your advocacy. Um, you could share a photo of a successful student program to spark interest, to catch a legislator's eye, to ensure that they understand and they could see that. Um, you could form a focus group. Um, like I said, meet with educators like families, local businesses in the area and ask really what are they're seeing on the ground, what they need uh, moving forward. So I think these insights can help you uh speak with somewhat credibility and having that nuance. Um and also engaging with PTAs and participating in local events, right? Um you could table school
027nights, you could attend city council meetings, uh or even local fairs, I would say. So just being visible in the community builds trust um and awareness, right? So, as you're establishing these partnerships, um your your job as a as a ledge rep isn't just to deliver a message to gather voices. It's to connect them to policy, right? And and show that advocac advocacy is a collective effort. Um you can't do this all by yourself. So, I highly encourage you to think about community engagement as you're looking through the toolkit. Um, I find that to be extremely helpful uh in in shaping and shifting advocacy voice for your district. Okay. Um, another resource uh on page 23 and then 38 page 38 to 40 uh is um student and peer partnership. Um I think student voice
028is extremely important um during legislative session or just advocacy in general. Um you know they are you should encourage student reps um to share their lived experiences with legislators. Uh you know you can act have them share some questions such as what barriers are they facing? What supports really help them to succeed? Um, also you could teach them how to frame policy issues, right? Like this is an intimidating process. Um, you could show them how the board process works, how to speak at town halls, how to write uh written testimony. So, you're giving them um a platform um to potentially they could co-present with you, co-f facilitate, even uh publish something, write an op ed. Um you could have them attend legislators meetings. Um and yeah, I really don't want you to forget um you
029know your your fellow board members in this whole process for supporting student and peer partnerships. Um as you're you know supporting your fellow board members, you are uh can host weekly sessions uh work sessions to ensure your advocacy voice is and approaches um steadfast. Uh you could I don't know share a drive on some talking points and resources. Uh you could assign buddies to to to you could share some of divvy up some of the work um uh during during this uh for with your board members. And I think some some questions to um reflect on here for this as we're thinking about this. Um what what issues will likely rise to the top for your board next year? Um also, how do you currently gather input from students and community members? Um how could
030you involve the public more deeply in your district improve improvement plan? uh when advocacy becomes something your whole board and student body engage in, not just a ledger rep, it becomes transformational. That was uh my quote. That's not a question. I just wanted to to leave you with that. So, when we're thinking about student and peer uh partnership, reflect on those questions as you're in an interim. Um student voice extremely important. It helps shapes advocacy. it give the legislators direct insight of uh how their policies could impact um K through 12 here in Washington state. So um I I want to reiterate um student voice is extremely important and advocacy work. So So as we close out, well not close out, I do have some breakout questions that I want to um have folks uh
031answer. Um, I think for the sake of time, I would love to uh give folks about one to two minutes to read these questions. I don't think I'm going to do breakout room, but I would love to hear from about maybe three to four people. Um, I think that would be great. So, how about that? I'll give you two minutes, sorry, three minutes to read the questions and then I'll just love to hear from three to four people. All righty, we're back. Uh I would love to hear from folks as I'm navigating this. Uh the first question is uh what issues you anticipate will be your board priorities. Uh where do you see and then the second question is where do you see opportunities for partnership with state legislators or community advocates? I would love
032to hear from three to four people. I think for Mount Adam, it's going to be funding both on the state level and the federal level. Uh with a with a lot of the grants going away from on the federal side that and we depend heavily on those grants that at our district. So that's that's my main concern for right now is is funding on both sides. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. Um, what what else do we have from folks in terms of board priorities or opportunities to partner with legislators or community advocates? Well, we've been trying to get our our well, we've been inviting our legislators to various functions around the district. I mean, unfortunately, they, you know, they they have a pretty busy schedule still between their own town halls and and
033catching up with their own families, but, you know, anytime we have a school visit or uh a special event in the in the district or even just in the community, we we try to connect with them and see if they can join us. Community engagement is extremely important and with families and students. I love that. For us, what happens, we we've had several of our local folks in and around the school district. We invite them out and they seem to respond to that. Uh the only ones I don't get any response from as our legislators up in DC. Uh I have one one person that does come pretty frequently, but I've have two others that don't that never I've been on the board uh 25 years and they've never been out here and we invite
034them every year that we go to DC to lobby, you know, for money and they won't come out. They'll send their reps out. I don't want the reps. I want them. I want them to see my district what what our needs are and I just can't get them to come out. I don't I don't know what it is. the the other uh gentleman that does come out, we have no problem. You know, we'll invite him out and he'll come out. But the other two have never been out here 25 years. Wow. We have to change that, Larry. We I don't know what to do, you know, short of I was even threatened to embarrass him in front in front of the, you know, when we go to DC for Impact 8. I I and uh
035and Kurt says, "Don't do that." I said, "How am I how am I going to get their attention? They're not listening to anything else." You know, we we tried to invite them out different ways. Uh come out to our pow-wows or something like that. You know what we got going on in the district, but they won't come out. And that that's frustrating to me. It really is. If I, you know, if I can spend time out of my, you know, you know, district, spend district money to go over there and lobby, they should be able to do the same thing for me. Yeah. So, I I completely agree with you and and thank you for sharing that. We we should problem solve around that, Larry. I'll definitely follow up offline. I think I would love
036to hear from one more person and I'm sorry I'm not sharing my screen because my notes are weird and I am okay with not sharing my screen anymore at the moment. Um I would love to hear about you know um gathering input from community members and students uh kind of what you know what do you do with this information from someone who haven't spoke yet. It would be just great to to hear from you. Oh I could speak Mike Bronty from concrete if we if we just get on by speaking up. Um yeah. Yes. So, I'm I just want to follow up on what Larry was saying and what one of the last things that one of the last slides you covered, Levon. Um, I'm now recognizing how important it is to reach out to
037our community to let them know that they should also be speaking to our legislators that that because, you know, we have a very varied community in terms of uh political stances and stuff, but they're all support. They we've, knock on wood, they have voted for levies very consistently, positively. And so we have to have the legislators answer the question, why is it that our taxes go up, we vote for levies, and there still isn't enough money to pay for special ed. There still isn't enough money. We don't actually get what we have to pay the teachers. Getting more community involvement is my takeaway, I think, from this meeting. Absolutely. how to how to I guess ensure community members uh have the advocacy muscle. Yeah. So well well thank you all for sharing. I know this
038is probably weird that we don't have my questions or presentation up but you know as we kind of close out today's session um I really want to thank you uh for discussing um you know these questions and also listening on me talk about stepping into your role of of advocacy. Um, I think you know during this time you've you've um took the time today to somewhat build a understanding or this was a refresher for you to step more into your role as a legislative representative. Um, I I I think some things I would encourage you to do within a few weeks uh is to to reach out to a legislator, not really just introducing yourself. Like I said, schedule coffee. They would be willing more to do that. I think that's extremely important. And invite
039them into your schools. Um, I know, you know, school year is over with, but if there's summer sessions, if there's a way to engage with a a summer activity or an event, uh, please do so, another way, um, is to, you know, host a a board conversation, um, and and continue to utilize this toolkit. Um, as you can see today, here is just part one of the other series um, of in stepping into your advocacy. Uh I think part two will focus more on building your action and influence and uh finding ways to to craft and uh create compelling messages, right? Um and and activating your board and and speaking during session. So I'm excited about uh the part two of this uh of this series. Um once again, thank you. Uh I look forward
040to seeing you at the next um Ledge Report meeting. And I'm going to pass this on to to Logan to talk about the countdown to general assembly. Thanks, Leavonne. Um really appreciate that um presentation. Um hope y'all enjoyed it and um got to experience our legislative impact toolkit just a little bit deeper. Um we just have a couple minutes left and um just wanted to remind you in case you're not already thinking about it um that we are starting our official countdown to general assembly. Um September 20th is 88 days from now. Um and information and resources and guidance will be ramping up over the next couple of months. But just sort of wanted to flag for you as I did at the beginning that this is really WASDA's time uh to start preparing you
041um for your participation in this event. Um and just wanted to throw out a couple key dates for you to put on your radar. Um the first of which feels the most urgent right now because it will happen before we get back together. Um one week from today, the pre- amendment general assembly handbook will be released for your viewing pleasure. Um there are other dates on the screen for you to take a look at. Um but really just wanted to remind you about that date coming next week. Um in addition to part two of the legislative impact toolkit series next month when we're together, um we'll spend some time orienting you to the handbook. Uh making sure you're familiar with sort of what's in there and how to navigate it. Um so hope you'll show
042up and join us um in July for that. Um that is what we've got for you today. Um we really appreciate you joining us. Um our contact information is on this slide. Um we invite you to reach out with questions that you might have. Um and please share any feedback um that you might have from today's session um specifically around the toolkit. Let us know sort of how it went and how it felt for you. Um that'll be helpful for us as we prepare session two for July. Um, the other thing that I want to flag for you is that our date is going to be just a little bit off next month as it was this month. I know you're very used to the second Tuesday and we will get back to that at
043some point. Um, in July um, Leavonne and I will actually be in Salt Lake City. Um, on the second Tuesday um, as a part of the National Education Commissioners of the States conference um, it's a National Education Policy Conference. So, we will be out of town. Um, meaning we will move our July Ledger Network meeting to Tuesday, July 15th at noon. That is the third Tuesday next month. Um, that will be updated on your calendars. Um, immediately following this meeting. Um, but just wanted to flag that for you so you had it in your notes. Don't come on the 8th. We won't be here. Um, but we will be here um, ready for you on July 15th. Um, feel free to reach out to us via email or phone if things come up for you
044in the next couple of weeks. Um, otherwise, thank you so much um for attending today, for spending time with WASDA, and um, hope you have a great start to your summer.