Parent Leadership Network and Training Overview
Parent Leadership Network
Mission
The INCS Parent Leadership Network was created to organize, mobilize and train charter school parents
from across the city and state with the purpose of developing leaders, spokespersons and advocates for
the charter school movement in the state of Illinois
Vision
We accomplish this by partnering with our INCS membership schools to develop a strategy around
ramping up parent engagement that activates parents to meaningful parent actions in their local charter
school and with INCS. We support this endeavor by facilitating a Parent Leadership Training. These
trainings are designed to develop and empower charter parent leaders to take ownership in the success
of high quality charter public schools by;
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Serving as a liaison between families and schools to develop a strong parent core in their charter
school
•
Equipping parents with advocacy skills to promote meaningful parent involvement in their
schools and with INCS
•
Educating parents on the significance and power of sharing their school choice school story
•
Equipping charter parents with the right information about charter schools so that they can
have thoughtful conversations with their friends, family and community as an advocate for
charter schools
•
Connecting parents and decision makers to engage in meaningful conversations and contacts to
influence their support of high quality charter schools in the state of Illinois.
Parent Leadership Training
The Parent Leadership Training is designed to empower charter school parents and discuss the many
ways they can partner with INCS to advocate on behalf of their school. Each training is divided into three
sessions. The first session is designed for parents to gain an understanding of why we advocate. We do
this by discussing the state of education on a macro and local level.We also discuss exactly what charter
schools are, so that parents are equipped with talking points to educate those outside of the charter
school community and to debunk myths.
Our second session is designed so that parents have an opportunity to articulate their own experiences
with education and why they chose a charter school for their family. Parents write their stories about
why they chose their respective school and practice them .This section is important, so that parents
develop a tool, their story, to connect with key stakeholders.
In the last session we take time to discuss opportunities for parents to take action as advocates. Parents
write a letter to their state senator and representative.