Frequently
Asked Questions

GO Public Schools is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a vision of a California where every child receives a quality education to fully participate and succeed in life and work in the twenty-first century.

We build and support a multi-city network of local advocacy coalitions, whose members — parents, educators, and community allies — work together to expand access to quality education in California’s most historically underserved communities.

By informing, aligning, organizing, and developing grassroots and grasstops leaders, we partner with our coalitions — currently in Oakland and West Contra Costa — to advocate for changes in local education policy, practice, and culture that will improve our student’s outcomes and better prepare them to succeed in college and career.

> Learn more about our organization.

> Get to know some of our team and coalition members.

> Read about the areas in which we advocate for solutions for kids.

GO Public Schools was founded during the 2008-2009 school year by a group of families, educators, and community allies who came together in advocacy to ensure that the Oakland community had information and opportunities to shape decisions about its public schools and to hold leaders accountable. 

Our early organizing experiences in Oakland confirmed the belief that our communities have the wisdom, passion, & power to impact local education policy in the best interests of kids.

In early 2016, we began building a similar local advocacy coalition in West Contra Costa, in response to a request from a group of local education and community leaders collaborating to improve WCC’s public education system.

Building on momentum from our coalitions’ successes and interest from other communities, GO Public Schools has launched a statewide effort to support families and educators in creating similar local advocacy coalitions across California to pursue equitable opportunities for all kids. 

> Read more about GO’s organizing efforts & growth in Oakland and WCC.

> Learn more about the values that bring us together.

We develop leaders and local coalitions that advocate for solutions for students within three areas:

• Engaged & Effective Educators 
• Quality Schools
• Equitable Systems

Guided by our Local Leadership Councils in Oakland and West Contra Costa, we work within our policy framework to identify, prioritize, and advocate for changes to local public education systems in the best interest of each community’s students.

> Learn more about our policy framework.

> Read about the values that bring our network of leaders together.

We build and strengthen our local coalitions — GO Public Schools Oakland, GO Public Schools West Contra Costa, and future sites — by providing infrastructure such as technology, data, finance, and human resources and support with fundraising, communications, and strategy. We also provide toolkits, organizing practices, resources, and connections to support our local teams in implementing successful advocacy campaigns.

Local leadership drives programmatic decisions and priorities.

> Meet our staff and Leadership Councils in Oakland and WCC.

In evaluating the potential for an effective partnership through a new GO site, we consider:

• Student needs
• Demand from & opportunity to partner with local leaders & communities
• Identification of local GO staff leadership
• Demonstrated interest or investment from funders

We are currently focused on continuing to deepen our work in Oakland and build out our newly-launched programs in West Contra Costa. While we don’t expect to have the capacity to collaborate in other cities before early 2017, we’re interested in understanding future opportunities to launch programs serving other high-need communities in California.

> Connect with us about exploring partnership in your community.

> Read more on how we’re thinking about future sites. 

GO Public Schools is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization funded by generous local and national foundations, corporations, and individuals.

We intentionally work to build a donor network of families, educators, and community members that is socio-economically, racially, cuturally, and linguistically inclusive and that shares a positive, solutions-oriented vision for improving our public schools.  

> Read about how we’re funded in Oakland and West Contra Costa.

> Learn about our work in Oakland and West Contra Costa.