Legislation » Legislative Advocacy Toolkit - 2024-2025

Legislative Advocacy Toolkit - 2024-2025

Legislative Advocacy Toolkit


This is Why Relationships with Legislators and Their Staff are Important:

  • CAWS (and IB) depend on practitioners to be effective advocates for the expansion of IB -- you are the experts in the field with lived experiences about the effectiveness of IB with many of their constituents’ children. 
  • Building relationships with legislators and their staff creates trust in both the advocate (you) and the policies you care about. This trust is crucial, especially when time is of the essence, as it often is during legislative sessions.
  • Legislators and their staff want people they trust in their districts to inform them of policy implications -- they come to depend on constituent-advocates to localize and contextualize complex issues.

This is What Makes an Effective Advocate:

  • Do your homework: familiarize yourself with legislators’ social media, press, district websites before engaging with them or their offices.
  • Know your local issues and look at the larger education picture and current context, especially that year’s budget situation.
  • Be prepared to respond to pushback, especially on the cost front, and be able to explain why IB is effective in serving the educational aspirations of young people in your community.

This is YOU Getting to Know Legislators and their Staff:

  • Since you are a constituent, you are very important, especially to the local district office staff.
  • Request a newsletter and sign up for email alerts from their offices.
  • Understand their interests, both personal and professional.
  • Look for chances to engage with them in the community (public meetings, town halls, fundraisers).

This is How You Connect (in order if effectiveness):

  1. Personal meeting (in-person or virtual)
  2. Phone call
  3. Personal letter 
  4. Form letter or postcard
  5. Email
  6. Social media outreach

This is How You Prepare for a Meeting*:

  • Understand your issue, why it should be important to them, and how you propose to solve it. Be prepared to make your case in as little as ten minutes.
  • Know the history of your issue – are you requesting incentive funding or state recognition or college admissions credit? Each of these requires a nuanced argument based on historical battles over similar issues.
  • Know your allies (and your foes). Who stands to gain or to lose if you are successful? How do you account for each?
  • Be positive, be brief, and use your time judiciously. Every legislator appreciates clarity and brevity.

This is the Nitty Gritty of a meeting:

  • Thank them for their time and interest. Be prepared to get to your talking points quickly
  • Reference any personal connection to the legislator or his/her staff.
  • Make your request specific: Do you want them to support, oppose, or author a specific policy or bill?
  • Give them a simple 1-page summary of the request and issues with your contact info.
  • Tell a compelling personal story of how IB really made a difference.
  • Localize your arguments to the legislator’s district – how will your position benefit the rest of their constituents?
  • Offer to be a resource and invite them to see your work in the district.
  • Leave time for questions.
  • Ask for a specific response to your request. Say you will follow up in a few days if they equivocate.
  • Always ask for advice on how to proceed -- they might be able to refer you to a colleague who has a natural connection to your issue.
  • Thank them again.

This is How You Follow Up:

  • Always send a thank you note to the member and/or their staff.
  • Send any information you promised the office within a couple days.
  • Let your colleagues and CAWS know how well the meeting went.

Staying Informed; key information sources:


Find your Legislator – findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov

Department of Education - www.cde.ca.gov

Legislative Bill Information - www.leginfo.ca.gov

Department of Finance (for budget info) - www.dof.ca.gov 

Office of Legislative Analyst (for budget analysis) - www.lao.ca.gov



*Use this with the Nitty Gritty section no matter how the interaction takes place: in person, virtually (i.e. Zoom), by phone, or by mail.


Remember: This set of tools is useful for advocating to Members of Congress, local school board members, and city council members – anyone in public office.