Last week, I had the fortunate opportunity to go to Jefferson City to advocate for St. Louis Public Schools with a significant group of SLPS stakeholders. The event coordinated with Kansas City Public Schools to join forces and get in front of state legislators to express our concerns regarding urban school district challenges and why we love our respective districts.

I have talked about it so much since then that I don’t really know which direction I want to take this because I could write an entire series regarding the events, interactions, and lessons I learned that of the day. But the crux of it all is that getting involved isn’t nearly as scary as you think it may be. And they have to listen you. That doesn’t mean they’ll agree with you or anything, but there is validation there that their entire job is wrapped around talking to their constituents. I mean, yeah, I’m sure you’re messing up their day’s schedule by just popping in. But, the WHOLE POINT of their job is to listen to constituents so, no, I’m not really bothering them. Kind of like asking a librarian for help, that’s LITERALLY the point of their job. You’re not bothering them. Frankly, they actually tend to LIKE the engagement. Librarians that is. Not entirely sure about politicians, ha!

Anyway, it was cool. I never did a field trip to the state capital in elementary school or anything. So this literally was my first time at my states capital for more than just “driving through” to the Lake of the Ozarks. I couldn’t help but document my visit and the architectural artistry of the building.

I didn’t know what the day would look like, I thought I’d find myself in more of the support/group assistant role with taking notes and pictures. But, as the morning continued, I realized I knew a lot more than the Average Joe that was beside me there. But they showed up. They taught me confidence. I’d like to believe that I taught them how to start Good Trouble…. vocally.

Once the representative knew she wasn’t going to be able to ignore me (us) long enough to make me (us) leave (I had to announce our presence, then request, and then re-request an update on when she was going to come to her office to talk to us even though her calendar was free (per her assistant) and she was already aware we were here before we stopped by her office due to the announcement on the House floor that I had just participated in) she finally showed up. And she couldn’t have been more dismissive to our group right out the gate.

She immediately started talking AT us about what she thought we were there about. Updates to the buildings. She kept talking about “…20 years ago…”. Anything we said to her would be deflected and pivoted to her irrelevant (but safe to her) messaging.

So I finally just put on my mom voice and said quite directly: “I don’t care about any of that…How do you feel about the Parents Bill of Rights? How do you feel about CRT?”

I’ll fast forward here because it became clear she didn’t know anything about it. And then just flat out said to me “How should I feel?” “You should hate PBR and like CRT” “Okay, then that’s how I feel!” Great. You really sold me (eyeroll).

But what I also saw happen was quite magnificent. The people in my group took charge one after another after another. I feel like I started something. I cracked the wall of the dam. She was about to get it from all sides of this circle group chat. They brought their confidence to bring more attention to the absurdness of it all. Some of the (paraphrased) amazing points are as follows.

“You keep saying 20 years ago, 20 years ago… how are you using democracy here to address current issues that are affecting our kids today??”

“With all due respect, but we have 3,000 homeless children in our district. Do you know that? There are bigger issues effecting the daily lives of our kids. We’re here speaking for them on behalf of their parents and caregivers. We’re here for all the people who can’t be.”

“See, I don’t like how you keeping telling us how you ‘Gave us money.’ That’s OUR money. You didn’t GIVE it to us. You allocated it. It’s not a gift to us when it came from us.”

“When was the last time you visited a SLPS school? I’m not even asking for you to the recall the school name, and I’ll also give you a break because of the pandemic, but when was the last time you visited a SLPS school??”

“Do you like teachers? Because they’re being exceptionally challenged versus supported by some of these current bills you’re voting on. Can I at least get you to say if you’re for or against teachers??”

So yeah, it was enlightening. I need to remember that as a parent I am not this all-knowing person even though I am in a place of leadership and authority with my children. My kids teach me amazing new facts they’re learning in school all the time. Scientists know so much more than they did when I was kid. So, I can be like my kids to my legislature. I can school them on what I know. I know more than I think I do. I surround myself with people that just talk about this stuff on the regular. I’m learning more through osmosis than I want to give myself credit for.

One last thing: “I match energies.” Plain and simple. If you’re not going to treat me with respect then I’m not going to be particularly interested in giving you some lobbed soft balls. I’m going to throw you as fast a pitch as I can to let you know who you’re dealing with. I’m just really glad I had a few people on my team to back me up.

I now know more about myself and MoLeg. I met a ton of people with SLPS and other nonprofits that I can connect to similar nonprofits. I got bit by a bug. I want to go back again. And again and again. So let me know if you’re interested in carpooling from STL sometime.