My last post was about Patience, and how you might need to readjust your time frame for getting whatever you advocate for done. However, what might speed things up? Here are some possibilities that I’ve observed:
- When the community is roused fully, things could move faster. If a sizeable amount of the parents calls for change, the district will likely need to do something. This has happened in the area of math education where parents have observed that their children are sitting bored and therefore causing distractions in the classroom when they are not placed in the right math level. It has, of course, also happened in the next category.
- Not surprisingly, and sadly, tragedy will make things move faster. At our district, we’ve had suicides and sexual harassment cases, both of which have made the district respond more speedily. Another example of this is vaping. With reports coming in that people are getting severe damage to their lungs along with deaths (2290 confirmed, 47 deaths as of November 2019), that makes people stand up and take notice. And rightfully so – nobody wants their children harmed or worse.
- District support will make things move faster. As soon as someone on the school staff believes in your mission and picks up the task, then things can and will move faster with an advocate in the organization. Thus finding someone on the staff to support your mission and vision will get things moving much faster.
- Board member support can also move things faster, as can getting the Superintendent on board. So this is an example of moving from the top down, whereas the previous item is about generating support from the bottom and then moving upwards. However note that while board member support can help things tremendously, they, too, are still separate from the organization and will require getting support within the district organization to get things moving. They will however, have a closer view of who in the organization might be a target for advocacy and will also command a lot of respect, if not influential authority, over the district personnel.
Note that I have found that speeding things up is more wishful thinking than reality, for the many reasons listed in my Patience post.
Featured image credit – Flickr