Counter-Recruitment: Building Skills and Thinking Strategically

Between 30 and 40 people came out to St. Joe's Wednesday night for a teach-in discussing the politics surrounding efforts to change the Rochester City School District policy on military recruiter access to student records and to figure out ways to be effective in the fight to keep the current policy that protects student privacy.

Declaration of Peace (DoP) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the teach-in. Mary Adams, a DoP member, explains the reasoning behind it: "Ever since this winter, the Rochester City School District lawyers and Superintendent Brizzard, have threatened to change the policy [to one less protective of student privacy], but people went to the board meetings and continue to go to board meetings. We wanted to get this teach-in to get more people on-board: parents, students, people in the community, people who may not know the details of the issue - because it is kind of complex."

The teach-in also featured skill shares on public speaking, framing discussions and counter-recruitment. Mary says the goal was, "to teach […] and also to have hands-on work sessions where we actually make signs, make speeches and get ready to have an effective presence tomorrow night."

This made the teach-in a unique night. Most of the time, if groups want to affect school board votes, they simply focus on getting people to the board meetings. Mary talked about why they organized an event beforehand, "This issue is really important because it could have national implications. If we are able to maintain a protective policy at a medium to big size school district, that is really great because we could inspire other people to stand up to the military.

This is a challenge really worth taking seriously. Taking it serious means that you want to be as effective as you possibly can: increasing your skills, taking your strategy seriously, trying to increase outreach so that it's more of a mass movement than the same activist core. All of these things are needed."

After the skill shares, School Board Commissioner Van White met with the group and gave encouragement and advice to the group. Van White has been the strongest advocate on the board for protecting student information from military recruiters. Van White also gave some insight on the political leanings of the board in general and his understanding of other board members current positions.

Both DoP and SDS see this fight as one step in a larger campaign. Jake Spezio of SDS said "This is currently the primary focus of a bigger campaign for SDS which is anti-recruitment/truth in recruitment campaign. We're looking to give recruiters across the city a hard time and, hopefully, get them out of schools - high schools specifically. We're looking at this as one of the most effective ways that we can throw a wrench in the war machine.

[The skills we taught tonight] are all skills that can be applied widely in this campaign and in the broader struggle. As many ways as people can empower their communities, on a grassroots level, to get what they need to get done done, the better."