Every August, Members of Congress pack up to return to their districts for a five-week recess to spend time connecting with their constituents and preparing for the fall legislative season. This provides a critical opportunity for outreach to your senators and representatives while they are back home for an extended period, and a great chance to help build awareness among policymakers of CTE. With a busy legislative schedule ahead to finalize reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, begin consideration of the Higher Education Act and complete work on the FY 2016 education funding bill, it’s critical that ACTE can look to our members to get involved this August!
To assist in your advocacy efforts, ACTE has created a Congressional Recess Packet with information and ideas for engaging with your policymakers and illustrating the value of CTE. You can get involved this August by:
- Scheduling an in-person meeting. Legislators and their staff are always eager to hear from their constituents in one-on-one meetings – and you can visit them during recess in their local district office. Be sure to schedule your appointment in advance!
- Attending a town hall meeting. Members of Congress often host town hall meetings or other events during August recess that are open to the community. These are great opportunities to voice your opinions and concerns before your policymaker in a public setting
- Inviting Members of Congress to your program. A great way to showcase the value of CTE is by inviting your Members of Congress to see your program in person. You can do so by contacting their district office – and be sure to invite members of their staff as well!
- Contacting the media. With the end of summer looming, many reporters and publications are interested in back-to-school stories. You can help generate positive coverage of CTE programs by writing your own op-ed or letter to the editor (as ACTE member Harry Snyder did here), or by contacting reporters in your community and inviting them to write about your CTE program.
- Use social media to promote CTE. Connecting with lawmakers on Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets is a quick and easy way to spread the message of CTE – and many lawmakers check their own social media pages! You can share an interesting statistic about your program, a picture of your CTE classroom, or one of ACTE’s infographics with your policymaker in just a few minutes, which would pique their interest to learn more about CTE!
We hope we can count on you to advocate for support among policymakers this August recess! To learn more about strategies for grassroots advocacy that you can use, click here.
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