CHARLOTTESVILLE UNITED FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

Launching a grassroots campaign to ensure all students are represented using messaging support & design.

Challenge

There are more than 4,200 students enrolled in Charlottesville City Public Schools (CCS). Nearly half (46%) of all students enrolled in CCS are economically disadvantaged and the majority of students at CCS are students of color. Buford Middle School and Walker Upper Elementary School serve the highest percentage of Black, Brown, and economically disadvantaged students across the entire school district. Due to a history of discrimination and disinvestments from city leaders, there are learning gaps across race and income.

In 2021, a group of parents came together with the goal of launching a grassroots campaign to ensure the needs of all students are represented. This would entail building a coalition of parents, community members and organizations to advocate for the long-term success of public education in Charlottesville. 

The catalyst for this campaign was a reconfiguration project – a $75 million plan to expand and modernize Buford Middle School for grades 6-8, return 5th graders to elementary schools and create a citywide preschool center on the Walker Upper Elementary School campus.

Our Approach

A key goal of the campaign was transforming an idea into a formalized entity with clear roles, a decision-making structure, and a brand identity that makes sense for long-term success. We leveraged relationships with parents in Charlottesville and built consensus around issues that uplift students to drive the campaign. We succeeded in establishing Charlottesville United for Public Education – a coalition of parents, grandparents, and community members committed to ensuring every child in Charlottesville City Schools receives a quality education.

Our team created a logo, launched a website and developed talking points to be used for policy agendas. To mobilize community members, we also created a social media toolkit and used local media to generate public support for reconfiguration.

Campaign messaging uplifted the organization as a community-based solution for public education. We also simplified language so elected officials understood the priority to expand capacity and facility needs for the middle school. That same messaging used by parents when giving public comments to City Council.

Results

There were two focal points for the campaign: recruiting parents to join Charlottesville United for Public Education and advocating for the financial investment needed for the reconfiguration project. We were successful in:

  • Launching a new organization with brand kit, website, social media presence, and digital channels to reach an audience across the city.

  • Advocating for school construction funding at the Virginia General Assembly. In less than 24 hours, we generated 25 public comments from Charlottesville residents and 50-plus comments from other localities.

  • Facilitating meetings with state representatives, Charlottesville City Council and school board members.

  • Receiving seven media hits from local press within a 1.5-month span of our launch date and generating coverage from Charlottesville School Board.

  • Establishing credibility for the organization and generating excitement based on immediate media hits.

In June 2023, CCS broke ground on the $90-million reconstruction project to modernize the city’s only middle school. By 2025, the school is expected to be open.

Today, Charlottesville United is one of the city’s leading organizations for public education advocacy, leading progressive change in the community.