Renee & Susan reflect on the beginning of a new(ish) year, and the ideas and thoughts they want to bring into 2026. We kick off the new year not with rigid resolutions, but with honesty, compassion, and intention. As they enter their fifth year of podcasting, Renee and Susan acknowledge that January doesn't always feel like a fresh start—especially amid relentless bad news, family pressures, and the emotional weight carried by so many everyday advocates.

Instead of traditional New Year's resolutions, the hosts explore the power of mantras: simple truths we can return to when motivation is low and hope feels fragile. Renee shares her personal mantra, "I am capable," reflecting on identity, self-worth, stay-at-home parenting, and reentering the workforce. Susan offers her own grounding reminder, "You're enough", and reframes survival, care work, and showing up imperfectly as meaningful and valuable.

The conversation then turns outward, as Susan calls on advocates to recognize their collective power, especially at the local level. From school boards to county commissioners to the North Carolina General Assembly, this episode emphasizes why community action still matters and why special education advocacy must be front and center in 2025. The hosts discuss proven policy solutions, fair pay and training for educators and instructional assistants, and the urgent need to fully implement Leandro recommendations.

In true Advocacy Bites fashion, Renee balances hope with sharp accountability, offering a blunt New Year's wish for legislators: give a damn. The episode closes with concrete opportunities to take action, including upcoming public education demonstrations, teacher-led walkouts, and simple ways to practice showing up in community, even when it feels hard.

🎧 In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Choosing mantras over resolutions

• Advocacy burnout, grief, and showing yourself grace

• Identity, caregiving, and self-worth

• Reclaiming personal and collective power

• Special education funding and policy solutions

• Leandro, public school funding, and educator support

• Practical ways to get involved locally in 2025

(02:18) - Choosing a Mantra: I Am Capable

(06:15) - New Year's Resolutions and Social Media

(07:53) - Empowering Advocates in Education

(12:23) - Legislative Resolutions and Advocacy

(15:46) - Hope and Action: Upcoming Events

(20:31) - Conclusion and Call to Action

Susan and Renee discuss their deep-dive into a right-wing legislator's social media and the patterns they noticed. In this candid episode of Advocacy Bites, hosts Renee Sekel and Susan Book take listeners inside what they call the anatomy of a right-wing legislator, not by naming names, but by dissecting the recurring patterns, priorities, and contradictions that show up again and again in state-level politics.

Drawing from an extensive deep dive into a legislator's social media presence, Renee unpacks how Second Amendment absolutism collides with so-called "school safety" policies, exposing the absurd cycle of putting more guns into communities and then demanding millions for armed officers, metal detectors, and security theater in public schools. Susan adds personal perspective on the real harm these policies cause, especially for students with disabilities and other marginalized kids.

The conversation expands into education policy, highlighting performative "pro-education" messaging, school privatization, resistance to teacher pay increases, and the obsession with pork projects and oversized ceremonial checks, funded by taxpayers and used as campaign props. Renee and Susan question what true fiscal responsibility looks like when public schools remain chronically underfunded.

As always, the episode leads back to the courts and the ongoing failure to enforce Leandro v. North Carolina, connecting legislative hostility toward public education with efforts to cap property taxes, weaken county funding, and undermine libraries and other public goods. The hosts explore how these moves are not accidental, but part of a broader strategy to starve public institutions while shifting blame to local governments.

Despite the frustration and righteous anger, the episode closes on a note of hope, reflecting on community, tradition, and the power of collective action to sustain everyday advocates through difficult political moments.

🎧 In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Second Amendment absolutism vs. school safety reality

• Why armed SROs don't make schools safer

• Education privatization and performative advocacy

• Pork spending, "big checks," and political theater

• Property tax caps, local funding, and the Leandro case

• How courts and legislatures enable systemic neglect

• Finding hope, community, and resilience in advocacy

Renee and Susan discuss the ongoing Leandro Case. In this episode of Advocacy Bites, hosts Renee Sekel and Susan Book confront a sobering question: What is the value of a constitutional right if it cannot be enforced? Sparked by national conversations with education advocates and legal experts, this episode delivers an unflinching examination of how justice is delayed—and effectively denied—in North Carolina's public education system.

Renee revisits the Leandro case, focusing on the 2022 Supreme Court decision and the years of inaction that followed after a partisan shift in the North Carolina Supreme Court. The discussion unpacks separation of powers, judicial authority, and how courts are increasingly using delay as a political tool, leaving students without the constitutionally guaranteed right to a sound basic education.

Susan connects the legal failures to real-world consequences: chronic underfunding, teacher shortages, rising classroom instability, special education breakdowns, and the growing risk as federal education oversight is dismantled. Together, they examine why counties are being wrongly blamed for failures that are constitutionally the state's responsibility—and why upcoming primaries and judicial elections may be the most consequential in years.

The episode closes with a direct call for civic engagement, ethical leadership, and basic human decency—reminding listeners that advocacy is not abstract, and language, elections, and accountability all matter.

🎧 In This Episode:

• What Leandro really decided—and why it still hasn't been enforced

• How partisan courts undermine constitutional rights

• Why delayed rulings are a form of injustice

• The real causes of classroom disruption and teacher burnout

• What voters must demand during primary season

• Why kindness, accountability, and advocacy are inseparable