Title of podcast, How Parental Engagement can Change a District, with image of father engaging with child

Parental involvement is important in education—we can all agree on that. But does it have any perceptible impact in the here-and-now? Veronica Gemma  is here to tell you that it does!

Veronica is a woman who had no previous experience in the realm of education before becoming a member of her local school board. No experience—except that she loved her children and dedicated ten years to homeschooling them. After her children went back to public school in their teens, Veronica was dissatisfied with the low standards and lack of parental involvement her district offered. She and several other candidates decided to run for school board and take back parental rights in their community. Listen in as she recounts the victories and challenges that followed.

“The main reason I wanted to get on the board was to have more insight and more oversight of curriculum…[I]t didn’t seem like they ever talked about curriculum. It was all about the dollars. And then they were spending money on a new football field. They spent a million dollars on a new football field and it wasn’t necessary.” — Veronica Gemma

Today we talk about:

  • Veronica’s experience homeschooling her kids for ten years, then enrolling them in public school when they became teens
  • What should you do if you don’t like the ideas your kids are bringing home from the classroom? For Veronica, the answer was: run for school board
  • How she successfully ran for school board and managed to start a movement that flipped her local school board from liberal to conservative in two years
  • The makeup of a local school board: how many members are there? Who really creates the policy?
  • What were some of Veronica’s goals? She lists concerns about taxes, lack of interest by the board in curriculum, poor financial oversight, and Critical Race Theory as a few of the things she hoped to change
  • Does school board leadership always operate like it should? Was Veronica’s school board operating well while she was a member?
  • The effects COVID mandates had on kids and parents during her stint on the board
  • Finally, Veronica and Melvin discuss the destructive actions of a “diversity committee” which was created for her school district—but not sanctioned by the board members

If you’d rather watch the video version of our podcast episodes, subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notified every Wednesday when new episodes launch. Here is today’s conversation with Veronica:

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