Girls IN STEM Academy

Winning a Local Advocacy Battle

The Opportunity: Paramount Schools of Excellence, a network of high-quality public charter schools, planned to open Girls In STEM Academy, an all-girls, STEM-focused school serving predominantly underrepresented students. They secured a charter to open the school, but they needed to earn publlic approval for rezoning the building where they planned to locate from church to school use. Opponents of charter schools mobilized against the plan because they did not want a charter in their district. Paramount hired Pen+Principle to help craft a winning message and disseminate that message across key advocacy strategies, from earned media to email, social media, and online petitions. 

Pen+Principle’s Approach: We created a compelling message to tell a positive story about the school so we could have a strong offense and not just respond on the defense to critics’ attacks. This message centered around the key value proposition of Girls IN STEM Academy – creating a sense of belonging that allows all students to achieve their potential. The tagline, “Girls who belong grow up to be strong,” summarized this selling point. Pen+Principle trained key messengers in this message framework and its delivery so that everyone spoke consistently about the school. We then worked in close partnership with ANT Foundation Consulting and the Paramount team to help mobilize parents and other supporters around the message and the school. 

Results: Through combined efforts that included grassroots advocacy, grasstop engagement, email, social media, and earned media, we generated more than 500 signatures for a petition in support of the school and won rezoning approval against fierce political resistance. The school is opening in the fall semester of 2024.