Wake Schools Community Alliance | We Won!

2009 Accomplishments

While each of you know (and should treasure) the role you played in electing for new board members, we felt it important that you know what WSCA achieved collectively in ten short months.

We grew into an organization of thousands of members across Wake County, all of whom shared the same goals of putting citizens back in charge of our schools.
We conducted outreach meetings in Holly Springs, Morrisville, Wake Forest and Garner.
We earned the trust and support of key business, community and political leaders across the county.
We vetted and endorsed four winning candidates who will serve our county well.
We publicized the KIPP charter school model, making it a campaign issue.
We focused public attention on the SAS report, which proved what we knew all along - that WCPSS had been inflating student test scores, and discriminating against certain demographic groups when granting promotions to higher-level coursework.
We launched a web site which saw regular hits of around 20 per day with a jump of nearly 30 times that on election day.
We generated more than 1800 specific mentions of the name Wake Schools Community Alliance in the News and Observer alone this year. This doesn't count letters to the editor from our membership, other newspapers and various TV and radio stations which ran pieces on 'WSCA' and 'WSCA-backed candidates'.
A google search found 33,700 references to the term 'Wake Schools Community Alliance'
And, when campaign time arrived, we provided the strong support to all four candidates. WE:
Raised over $38,000.
Sent seven different mailers to almost 30,000 addresses.
Placed over 20,000 phone calls to voters.
On election day, we provided 88% of the staffing at the polling stations.
And when it came time to really roll up our sleeves, we established 3 of the 4 candidates' volunteer coordinators, getting poll volunteers and phone tree volunteers mobilized.

Since the election, our success story has been picked up by the national media, including a feature article in USA Today. Parents in other parts of the country who have been let down by their school boards have seen that a dedicated group of people can make a difference and turn things around.

Despite the heavy criticism leveled at this organization by status-quo supporters, WSCA members stood strong with the knowledge that our cause was just, and that the families and taxpayers of Wake County were counting on us to deliver.

What's Next?

On December 1st, our new School Board members will take office. Thus begins the transformation of our school system, to one which respects families, spends our money wisely, and focuses on healthy students instead of just healthy schools.

And our job is far from over. WSCA must help our new School Board to achieve the vision we have for our school system. Remember that School Board members have no support staff, and that their only direct employee is Superintendent Burns.

About WSCA

The Wake Schools Community Alliance is a non-partisan, diverse cross-county network of citizens taking action towards a better WCPSS solution. In Oct '09, the citizens of Wake County elected all four (4) WSCA-backed candidates to the Board of Education. Each of these new board members has promised to listen and respond to parents and citizens first. We believe that academic excellence and stability for each student are necessary components of a better solution. Read More...