Mary Lee Cozad DeKalb, Illinois

Mary Lee Cozad decided to run for a seat on the DeKalb, Illinois, school board because she was worried about the quality of education her two daughters were getting. While the existing board "circled the wagons" and planned to build a new administrative complex, she and a friend campaigned for smaller class sizes and higher academic standards. "We won in a landslide," she remembers. "People were so disgusted that I think Attila the Hun could have won that year."

Five years later, Cozad still tries to listen to what parents and other community members are saying. The board holds public hearings, conducts community telephone surveys, and seeks the opinion of parent advisory and school councils. Parents can also find the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of board members on the district's website.

Cozad's best source of what's needed, though, is still her own girls. The older one is in college now, and the younger one is a student at Huntley Middle School in DeKalb. She might not be there for long, though: If Cozad loses her battle to keep block scheduling out of the local high school, she says she'll probably send her daughter to a Catholic high school with a more structured curriculum and schedule. But even if her own children aren't there to benefit, Cozad says she'll continue the fight to improve academic standards in DeKalb's public schools.

More on: Getting Involved with Your Child's School