Chances are you have seen photos of students waving yellow fleece scarves during a January event over the past 15 years. These cheerful visuals from National School Choice Week (NSCW) celebrations exemplify the energy and excitement of K–12 school choice in America and runs from January 26 through February 1 this year.
However, few people know how NSCW, which has facilitated 235,724 events since 2011, got its start or how much it has evolved. I’ve had the privilege of playing a role in the week’s growth, and this story––of a different and innovative approach to philanthropy––is one I am grateful to share.
Changing the Paradigm
From the early 1990s to the late 2000s, public and private school choice programs spread phenomenally, propelled by committed parent advocates. However, despite their thrilling potential and immediate impact, school choice remained poorly understood by parents and the news media.
America’s education system offered parents greater freedom, but too many parents were unaware of their options or how to navigate them. One visionary philanthropist set out to change that.
Tracy Gleason never planned to be a grantmaker. After graduating from Princeton University, she pursued a career in marketing and saw firsthand how consumer awareness could make or break a product or service. When tapped to lead her family’s foundation, the Gleason Family Foundation—which had long backed school choice—her experiences informed her approach to giving.
Tracy knew that for school choice to grow, millions of parents, educators and advocates had to be energized by a shared sense of momentum and possibility. So she started building.
In 2010, she launched a new charitable initiative within the Gleason Family Foundation, NSCW. During one week each January, NSCW would empower school choice supporters to host positive, inclusive events to showcase how opportunities in K–12 education were making a difference. Every school choice option—public, charter, magnet, private, online, home and nontraditional—would be celebrated equally.
NSCW was purposefully decentralized, giving event organizers the freedom to plan events tailored to their communities’ needs and encouraging them to generate attention and positive media coverage for their own work. To tie these vastly different events together under one national umbrella that represented student and parent empowerment, Gleason and her small team came up with a unifying symbol: bright yellow fleece scarves.
In its first year, NSCW welcomed 150 events. Excitement spread, and by its fifth year, 11,082 schools and organizations hosted independent NSCW events. By 2020, more than 26,000 schools, nonprofits and homeschool groups were participating. NSCW organized everything from a Jonas Brothers concert and a cross-country train tour to nationally broadcast kickoff celebrations. Thousands of media stories highlighted school choice each January, reaching tens of millions of people. Then, in an instant, the world changed.
Expanding Our Work
When COVID-19 hit, our team immediately realized our event-focused NSCW model wouldn’t be possible in early 2021. Within two weeks, we shifted our team’s efforts to developing online resources and helping families better navigate remote learning. When we launched our suite of resources, we were unprepared for just how many parents craved jargon-free information.
Within a month, more than 50,000 families had accessed these guides—without a single dollar spent on advertising. Parents told us that beyond just COVID resources, they needed ongoing, accessible and plain-language guidance to make informed decisions about their children’s education.
We got to work, expanding the state-by-state resources we offered and building glossaries, explainer articles and accompanying videos. These resources would later be branded Navigate School Choice. Not satisfied with only serving English-speaking families, in 2022, we launched an ambitious program in Spanish, Conoce tus Opciones Escolares.
New Programs, a New Home and a Bright Future
When the world reopened, NSCW came roaring back. Navigate School Choice and Conoce tus Opciones Escolares kept growing, too. With continued partnership from the Gleason Family Foundation and the goal of broadening our philanthropic base to fuel growth, we launched two sister nonprofits to house our three programs: the National School Choice Awareness Foundation and the National School Choice Resource Center.
In 2025, our programs will break records. NSCW is set to feature 27,607 events, including 66 massive rallies and fairs across 40 states. Navigate School Choice will serve 2.8 million parents, and Conoce will provide resources to 250,000 families.
Many potential partners tell me they are genuinely inspired by our programs but we’re “very different” from the organizations they have supported in the past. That’s deliberate, and to our small but mighty team, it’s our strength. Tracy Gleason never set out to launch cookie-cutter charitable programs, and we’ve never tried to follow the path of other nonprofits. We’re forging our own.
We also know being different isn’t an accomplishment by itself—results matter. Behind the magic of NSCW is a team, one I have been honored to lead for more than a decade, relentlessly committed to measuring impact and making nimble changes to maximize return on investment. Simply put, there’s a method to our joyfulness.
Last year, 52% of U.S. parents recalled seeing NSCW in January, and those parents were 3.4 times more likely to explore school choice options. NSCW benefits schools, too, with 69% reporting increased parent enrollment inquiries. For our navigation programs, 76% of parents said our guides improved their understanding of education options.
The school choice movement is at a watershed moment––a time when huge policy wins are being lived out in the real world by real families. The assignment couldn’t be clearer—all of us who believe in school choice have a duty to make it work well for families. This means giving them clear information about their options and catalyzing the process of choosing a school at the right time of year.
That’s where those yellow fleece scarves come in: piquing interest with joy and community, equipping families to make the most of their options and demonstrating to the whole country the amazing possibilities school choice can offer.
Andrew Campanella has served as chairman and CEO of the National School Choice Awareness Foundation since its launch in 2022. He has led the National School Choice Week charitable program as its president since March 2012.
Previously, he served as national director of communications at the American Federation for Children and senior director of teacher recruitment and communications at the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. He is the author of “The School Choice Roadmap: 7 Steps to Finding the Right School for Your Child” (Beaufort Books, 2020).
