Community Impact

Stand For Children educates and organizes parents, teachers and communities to demand excellent schools. Up a flight of stairs in an airy meeting room overlooking Saint Claude Avenue, Dana Henry is getting ready for a gathering — the Orleans Parish parent endorsement committee training. It’s a get-together for parents to learn more about the Orleans Parish School Board: what it does, and who parents should back to be on it. “ Stand for Children is really the only organization in the city that focuses strictly on organizing parents to support good policies in public education,” says Dana Henry, the New Orleans Director for Stand for Children. “The parents in our organization are really the backbone.” This national non-profit helps New Orleans parents become better education advocates in all sorts of ways: how to have a productive conversation in parent teacher conferences, or what to do when a really challenging homework assignment gets slapped onto the kitchen table after a long day of