Moving the Agenda: Closing the Achievement Gap in Pennsylvania and Beyond 2009 Pennsylvania Political Leaders Fellow Andrea Lawful Trainer Empowers Parents and Students Across the State

Closing the achievement gap in America’s educational system takes more than good teachers, challenging curriculum, and a high quality learning facilities. It also takes involved parents who will actively participate as an advocate on their children’s behalf.

That’s why Andrea Lawful-Trainer has devoted much of her work as an academic consultant to this piece of the achievement gap puzzle.

By engaging parents in trainings about how the public school system works and providing leadership development for the students themselves, Andrea has played an integral role in closing the achievement gap for students in the Abington area.

Advocacy in the Classrooms: Beyond the Parent-Teacher Conference

Andrea’s commitment to building strong parent leaders came from her experience with her own son, who recently began his college admissions process and has already been accepted into two colleges. When her son was in elementary school, Andrea received a phone call from his teacher saying that he needed to be moved to a special education program. Instead of taking the teacher’s word for it, she took matters into her own hands.

“I began doing research on how to become an advocate for my child,” she says. Andrea began attending workshops with Parents as Leaders, an organization that teaches parents about advocating for their children’s education at the state and federal government levels. By the second session, she knew she wanted to empower other parents to do the same.

“I have a college degree and consider myself educated, but I didn’t know how to navigate the system,” Andrea says when reflecting on her first experiences, which were followed by becoming president of the Parent Council and later her campaign for the Abington School Board, which she won successfully in 2007.

After receiving training from Parents as Leaders, Andrea began providing leadership training for parents on her own, founding C.A.L.M. (Committed Advocates Leading Many) Society in her Abingdon community. Through her work with CALM Society, Andrea began training parents about how to productively advocate for their kids using effective strategies and knowledge of how the education system works. “The key is not to be confrontational, but to be educated about how the public school system works,” she says. Soon, she began receiving phone calls and e-mails from people who wanted her to start similar leadership programs in other parts of the state.

From Detentions to Diplomas

In addition to empowering parents to become advocates, Andrea is also passionate about leadership development for students themselves. “Leadership development opportunities is one tool we can use to close the achievement gap in Abington and beyond,” says Andrea, whose training covers life skills, community service, and how to dress for interviews and other professional development topics.

Giving students access to life skills and leadership training provides young students with the opportunity to engage with their school community and gives them a sense of ownership and responsibility. “A lot of students don’t know where they fit in, and don’t see themselves as an integral part of their school community,” Andrea says. “It’s my job to help students feel as though they fit into their school, and to make better leaders of themselves.”

Studies have shown that when a student is more involved in extracurricular activities and other parts of their school community, they are more likely to succeed academically. Part of Andrea’s model keeps these facts in mind in training students. “When you raise the expectation and make a child feel welcome, they feel so good about themselves and their potential that they want to do better.”

Sense beginning her leadership trainings, students have improved by leaps and bounds from not being suspended from school for two years to higher grades and being an active participant in class discussions. It is these kinds of improvements that inspire and motivate Andrea to continue her outreach to parents and with engaging and developing the youth.

Her work with students and their parents has expanded across the state, and her original student leadership program in Abington that Andrea helped facilitate has grown from 30 students to a total of 400 students, in addition to a mentorship program that matches older high school students with students in elementary and middle school. “I get so excited when I see the kids transforming right in front of my eyes.” So far, most of Andrea’s work has taken place in the suburbs, but she is current creating plans and building relationships in order to replicate her programs in the inner-city areas of Philadelphia and Germantown.

Stepping Up and Stepping Out

In addition to expanding across the state, Andrea has also been invited to expand her trainings nationally, having been contacted by schools in Detroit and Chicago. Throughout all of her success, she says that CPL is what really drives her courage and confidence when walking into a new school or talking to a new set of parents, and it was a level of confidence that she did not have before completing the fellowship.

“At the orientation I walked into the room and saw all these judges and mayors and lawyers, and at first I didn’t think I fit in,” says Andrea. It was her faculty coach, Geoff Brace, who encouraged Andrea to trust in her own abilities.

“I knew the kind of work I was doing was impacting people’s lives, but I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing. Geoff taught me how to own the leadership qualities I already had.”  At the end of the fellowship, Andrea learned that Geoff wasn’t the only one who recognized Andrea’s talent and leadership; she was named the Most Visionary of her class by her fellow participants.

As more opportunities arise for Andrea to take her work statewide and nationally, she owes her willingness to expand her leadership to her experience as a CPL Fellow.

“CPL took me out of my comfort zone because for so long, I was content with staying in my own local area,” says Andrea. “Now that I’ve completed the program, I know that I am ready to expand my programs across the country.”

------------------------------------------------------------

Andrea was a member of the 2009 Pennsylvania Political Leaders Fellowship.