From Awareness to Action: How Parents Are Holding APS Accountable for Special Education Reform
At P.A.C.E., we believe advocacy isn’t just about raising awareness—it’s about turning that awareness into action. Real change happens when people not only understand an issue but feel compelled to do something about it. Over the last seven years, we’ve worked with partners across the country to build and run campaigns that build grassroots engagement and turn that into policy or electoral impact. One recent effort is a clear example of how the right mix of strategy, data, and organizing can yield transformative action.
In 2024, Atlanta Thrive (Thrive) launched their Don’t Dis-the-ability Campaign. Families had been waiting too long for evaluations, denied the services their children were entitled to, and left without clear answers from Atlanta Public Schools (APS). Their goal? To push APS toward finally taking accountability and implementing meaningful reform in the delivery and tracking of special education services.
P.A.C.E. partnered with Atlanta Thrive to help sharpen their advocacy, combining facts with the voices of those directly impacted. The campaign reinforced an essential truth—effective advocacy blends data with real stories. Below are a few key lessons that we hope can inform future advocacy campaigns:
- Blending Data and Storytelling to Drive Change
Advocacy is effective when it’s backed by hard evidence. P.A.C.E. helped Thrive use Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests to obtain critical data on APS’s special education services. This allowed Thrive to ground its advocacy on facts rather than anecdotes, strengthening their case in meetings, public communications, and media outreach. However, data alone isn’t enough to create change. The most powerful advocacy efforts bring together data and emotion. Atlanta Thrive did this by:
- Meeting families where they were; at school events, community gatherings, or one-on-one meetings.
- Listening to hundreds of parents share their experiences navigating APS’s special education system.
Combining these personal stories with undeniable facts made the issue impossible to ignore. Families weren’t just sharing frustrations, they were demanding solutions.
- Grassroots Mobilization Creates Momentum
Families quickly rallied behind the campaign. A petition calling for an APS special education audit garnered over 750 signatures without any paid promotion. The response was overwhelming, and APS agreed to conduct the audit in July 2024. However, progress remained slow months later, with only one of five high-priority recommendations showing movement, while several moderate- and low-priority issues remained unaddressed.
Rather than stopping at this first win, Thrive doubled down. They launched a second petition, this time demanding the implementation of a public SPED audit dashboard that would allow families to monitor updates without needing to attend district meetings, ensuring transparency and accountability for all students, particularly those with disabilities. The message was clear: parents shouldn’t have to fight in the dark for their children’s rights.
- Sustained Advocacy Ensures Accountability
Without continuous advocacy calling for transparency and accountability, there is a real risk that its findings will fail to translate into meaningful action. Ensuring that these audits bring positive change to families and students is critical—they can’t just be shoved in a drawer somewhere to be forgotten.
Thrive’s latest advocacy push underscores a crucial lesson: one victory is never enough. Without an accessible way for families to track these reforms, there was a real risk that the findings would simply collect dust rather than lead to tangible improvements. By demanding the SPED audit dashboard, they are pushing to make sure its findings lead to real, measurable improvements for students.
What This Means for Future Partnerships
Atlanta Thrive’s campaign reminds us that real change happens when awareness turns into action. Facts alone don’t move people—stories alone don’t change policies. Combined, they build the momentum needed to push systems forward and create fundamental policy and institutional behavior shifts.
At P.A.C.E., we’re committed to helping partners like Atlanta Thrive unite both pieces. Whether it’s through uncovering the right data, crafting compelling messaging, or building the infrastructure to sustain advocacy over time, we stand alongside communities to ensure their voices don’t just get heard, they drive results.Because at the end of the day, advocacy isn’t just about making noise. It’s about making an impact.
By Jason Provost, Managing Director of Program
