Progressive Maryland
Education Organizer Position Description
Background: Progressive Maryland is a grassroots community organization that works to improve the lives of low- and moderate-income people throughout the state of Maryland. Progressive Maryland has more than 54,000 individual members and supporters, as well as more than 20 affiliated labor, religious, and civic organizations supporting our work. Progressive Maryland has come together with its affiliated organizations and allies to form Prince George’s Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS). This coalition was formed in order to unite stakeholders of the Prince George’s County school system including parents, students, teachers, community leaders, and other school system staff in an effort to improve education in Prince George’s County through policy change and community organizing.
Part Time AROS Organizer: The Part Time AROS Organizer reports to the Progressive Maryland Executive Director and has responsibility for building a network of activists and leaders for the organization. The Organizer is responsible for recruiting new supporters, engaging activists, and developing a coalition that will identify and support the mission of Progressive Maryland and AROS.
Campaign Goals:
– Within the first 3 months…
– Recruit 12 new coalition members who can commit to being able to organize at least 10 people to get involved in AROS.
– Mobilize at least 30 non PGCEA members or PGCEA staff to take action in support of teachers involved in bargaining with the school system.
– Do at least 40 relational 1 on 1 meetings with parents/students who express interest in AROS.
– Recruit team of 7 core volunteers to support voter contact work regarding education, including voter registration and voter education regarding the Board of Education elections.
Responsible for:
– Advance a progressive and coworking people focused agenda for education in Prince George’s, including but not limited to the following policies.
– Healthy foods for students
– A Parent & community advisory board for the system.
– Project labor agreements for school construction.
– Creating union affiliated school apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs
– Expanding school funding; lowering classroom size; increasing special needs support and the use of community schools; addressing teacher retention, Head – Start funding excessive testing; and promoting restorative justice.
– Work with the AROS Coordinating Committee and Progressive MD Executive Director to develop and carry out a strategic plan for AROS;
– Manage the operations of the AROS Coordinating Committee, including scheduling, preparing for and facilitating regular calls and face-to-face meetings, developing and sharing notes from those meetings;
– Coordinate fundraising efforts for the Alliance, including identifying prospects, organizing members of the Coordinating Committee to reach out and meet with potential funders, tracking relationships, writing (or supervising the writing of) grant proposals;
– Coordinate internal communications structures to engage and inform our local grassroots partners, as well as conduct regular external outreach and movement building for AROS through relationship-building with allies and potential allies.
Recruitment:
– Assist in the development as well as lead the execution of plans for generating new contacts to reach out to and engage as supporters of the organization
– Establish and meet goals for new prospective supporters identified and add to our database.
– Create and participate in opportunities to expand our reach, meet new potential supporters, and generate new contacts to add to our base
– Ensure data is kept current in the organizational database by ensuring new contacts are immediately added, contact records are maintained and results are tracked
Mobilization:
– Work with Progressive Maryland Communications Director to assist in the development and lead the execution of a plan for using EveryAction to engage our list of supporters in opportunities to participate in AROS activities.
– Write action alerts and create other tools to use for outreach to build our base of supporters
– Create and lead events and activities turning out supporters to ensure participation from our base
Timeline:
The position is part time and temporary for 3 months following the start date with the possibility of being renewed.