Welcome to the OTL Network

40 Grantee Partners

306 Organizations

Representing 120,000 active students, parents, and advocates nationwide and in strategic states

The Vision

Our public education system shapes both our leaders and our future.

This means supporting communities to have the power to envision and demand the excellent public education systems that they want: systems that culturally affirm them, leverage their brilliance, challenge their thinking, and prepare them to live in and lead in the future.

Members’ Mission 

The National Opportunity to Learn (OTL) Network is a coalition of national alliances and community-based grassroots organizations which works to secure a fair & just high-quality public education for all students through the centering of Black, Brown and Native students.

 

The OTL Network believes:

  • BIPOC youth, parent and educator-led campaigns deliver the demand, public and political-will, to address systemic racism and structural inequalities which prevent our children from learning and thriving.
  • BIPOC voices and campaigns ensure that equity, justice and love is concretized in Black, Brown and Native students’ learning so that we achieve truly equitable learning outcomes.
  • BIPOC voices and campaigns are essential components of democracy in action in local communities.
  • Public education should be engaging, inspiring and lead to learning that ensures all children understand the world they are living in and are socio-emotionally and cognitively prepared to improve their lives, communities and humanity.
OTL Network Demographics
OTL Network Demographics

Member Benefits

Capacity and Support

Network members gain philanthropic resources and advocacy supports such as communications, research and policy analysis, training and networking. Members build long-term and collaborative relationships with philanthropy and with both grassroots and grasstops partners.

Technical Assistance and Training

As a grantee partner in our OTL Network, Schott can provide you with customized support for your OTL campaign beyond the funding that we give and at no additional cost to you.  We encourage you discuss your campaign’s specific needs with our Program Team, including communications, policy advocacy, network building, fundraising and development.

In addition, Network members have an extensive program of communications support at their disposal, including strategic communications planning, website design and development, video editing and production, social media trainings, press and media outreach, and graphic design services. Because this support is provided in-house, grantees have access to communications capacity that’s normally only afforded to much larger organizations.

Convenings

At Schott we strongly believe in the power of connecting advocates together in collaborative spaces, and we’ve been doing that virtually and in-person since our very first OTL Summit in 2008. Most recently, we held an issue-specific convening on how to organize around the billions of dollars contained in the American Rescue Plan. You can watch a video of the presentations here, but the real value of the convening was the extensive discussion and breakout groups that gave Network members the tools and insights needed to kick off organizing in their communities.

Next steps:

  • Sign up for our e-newsletters and alerts highlighting news, resources, analysis and upcoming events for educators, parents, students, researchers and other advocates.
  • Get in touch with us! Email your contact person at Schott and schedule a conversation.