Citizen involvement is changing politics at the capitol. View a summary of what has been done. These engagement activities are creating the change we need in Arizona.

• 10,000 supporters of public education kicked off the march4schools movement at a rally on March 4, 2009 at the capitol while the governor addressed a joint session of the legislature.
• During March, April, and May parent, teachers, and school employees visited the capitol to advocate for our schools during AEA Shadow Days.
•  The march4schools movement organized dozens events, rallies, and advocacy training, and public forums across Arizona. 500 attended a rally in Flagstaff, dozens picketed the governor's office in Tucson every week, hundreds showed up at a Republican meeting in Scottsdale, dozens were trained in Yuma, hundreds attended a forum in Prescott, and many other march4schools activities occurred in March, April and May.
• Coalition efforts included parent group from all over Arizona such as CARE, Voices for Education, AEN, and APPLE.
• Alliances with labor organizations like SEIU and public policy advocacy groups like the Arizona Budget Coalition were organized.
• 378 citizens from all over Arizona showed up between June 2 and June 25 during Heat Wave at the Capitol days each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These citizens contacted their legislators through office visits, cell phone calls, and letters, as well as attending floor session where they were introduced from the gallery. Many of these citizens came more than one day providing a constant presence of pro-education citizen advocates at the capitol as legislators worked on the budget.
• 500 citizens showed up with less than 24 hours of notice on Saturday, June 27 to protest a last minute partisan budget deal reached among the governor and Republican leadership. A march on the mall of the capitol drew widespread attention to the massive cuts and irresponsible revenue measures contained in the budget deal.
• More than 120 citizens showed up each of the last two days to protest budget cuts to our schools and vital services.
• Late Tuesday afternoon on June 30 when many of the march4schools advocates had gone home after spending most of the day at the capitol, a core of about 40 remained and began calling for additional volunteers to come to the capitol for a 7:30 p.m. news conference. Over 100 were on hand by 7:30 p.m. where the entire Arizona media corps were on hand for AEA Vice President Andrew Morrill's call to the governor to veto any budget that did not fund public education and vital services.
• At 2:00 a.m. on July 1 about 50 spirited march4schools citizen advocates remained at the capitol keeping the heat on legislators.
•  Since June 1 subscribers to the AEA Legislative Update have sent 18,640 messages to legislators and/or the governor.
• Since the beginning of the legislative session subscribers to the AEA Legislative Update have sent 75,136 messages to legislators and/or the governor.
• The Legislative Update subscriber list has grown from 5,321 to 13,237.  
• Social networking sites were used to broaden our impact creating a active presence on Facebook, Twitter, and various Blogs.