By The Democratic Socialists of America has a plan for parents who show up at a protest and need someone to watch the kids. Last month in New York City, its “Red Sprouts” program trained volunteers in what it calls “resistance-driven childcare.” While the adults demonstrated, the children could play cooperative games, take part in political discussions and settle in for some “radical storytelling,” Fox News reported.
For a sense of where the DSA wants all this to lead, consider what it tells its candidates. The organization’s electoral strategy calls for socialists to run on the Democratic ballot line while building a political organization independent of the party whose nomination they seek. The goal, in the DSA’s own convention documents, is a party capable of “winning and wielding state power.” A local school board gives organizers a place to start, a reason to knock on parents’ doors and a chance to earn the backing of a teachers’ union before the next campaign.
DSA wants influence over school boards, teachers’ unions, classroom curriculum, and even programs for children as young as two.
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The New York chapter has been working with a considerably younger constituency for a decade. Its Socialist Sunday School dates to 2016 and serves children ages two to six. Children have sung the labor anthem “Solidarity Forever” and read Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax as a lesson in corporate greed. In 2025, the DSA’s national political education committee outlined plans for a “Socialist Sprouts” curriculum. Alleigh Marré of the American Parents Coalition told Fox she sees a “concerted effort to instill an ideology” at an age when some participants are still learning to speak in full sentences.
Parents who bring their children to Socialist Sunday School have a pretty good idea of what they signed up for. A public school board has authority over schools serving every family in the district. At the DSA’s 2023 convention, organizers pressed for a national effort to recruit school board candidates, arguing that these races could help socialists reach parents and build lasting ties with teachers’ unions. In Oakland, that alliance was already at work. During the 2022 elections, the Oakland Education Association publicly touted the DSA’s endorsement of its candidates. In Los Angeles, the local DSA chapter laid out plans to enlist unions in a campaign for a Green New Deal for public schools, according to
New York Democrats have already seen what happens when the socialists decide they’re ready for higher office. In June, DSA member Darializa Avila Chevalier, backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, defeated five-term Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat in his own primary. As New Conservative Post reported previously, the DSA followed its New York victories by asking organizers across the country who should carry the socialist banner in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.
That congressional upset helps explain why a national socialist organization cares who wins a seat on the local school board. A chapter that can recruit a candidate, secure a union endorsement and turn out parents for a school election has people who know how to do all three when a congressional seat opens up. The next Democrat who finds himself on the losing end of a primary might wish he’d paid closer attention to the school board race.
[READ MORE: Mamdani Looks To Cement His Place As Kingmaker]
