My best community organizing experience was out petition drive to get the school board meeting time changed in our community. I am from Indianola, MS which is a majority black community that still believes in segregation. We have five schools located within my city that makes up the Indianola School District. The Indianola School District consists of Lockard Elementary School, Carver Elementary School, Robert L. Merritt Middle School, Cassie Pennington Junior School, and Gentry High School. Our city is divided by a railroad track. The north part of the city belongs to the white and the south part of the city belongs to the black. Within this separation lies a school board of 5 members, four blacks and one white. Out of the entire school board none of them have children in the district. Where are the parents’ voice?!?!?! Keep in mind they are always talking about parental involvement. How can parents be involved and the school board meetings are during the day at 1:30 pm. The policies are being made and set by a group of closed minded individuals that does not have any connection or communication with the students or parents. After all the incidents, confusion, disagreements we have been pushing the issues to get parents, administrators, teachers, and community folks on the board. We started petitions to get the school board meeting time changed to 6 in the evening so everyone could attend. We presented the petitions with over 1,000 names to the board three different times before they voted on the new school board time. We had our first evening school board meeting on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 6:00 pm.
