Civic Engagement January 2021

By Michael Stallings

Local Government Education Week

Each year the week in April is designated at Local Government Education Week in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  During this week I encourage all of you to make an extra effort to reach out to your community to see if you can get in front of various groups.  We are all ambassadors of our profession, and this week is a great time to get in front of citizens to make sure they are aware of the wonderful things that we do in local government.  Do not forget about our schools, some ways to get involved can be as simple as volunteering to read a book to an elementary class for story time, or as complex as hosting a high school government class for a day. 

I encourage you all to have your Governing Bodies adopt a resolution proclaiming the first week in April as Local Government Education Week.  You can download a sample resolution and get a ton of information and ideas of projects and initiatives from the civic education portion of the VLGMA website https://icma.org/vlgma/civic-engagement.

As important as Local Government Education Week is, it isn’t enough.  Local government education should be part of our ongoing efforts to broaden knowledge about all that we do as local governments and all the exciting professions that are available to our youth.  I encourage you all to develop a local government education plan that seeks to continue your education efforts beyond the first week of April.  Resources to help with the development of your plan can be found at the link provided above.

Now get out there and spread the good word about local government in Virginia!