“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
With the federal election underway, we have an opportunity to raise the issue of disrepair in Canadian public schools. Please take advantage of this opportunity. Speak to your local candidates and write them a letter urging them to invest in public schools as a critical element of our society’s infrastructure.
As proof of the famous Margaret Mead quote above, we wanted to share a story from early on in the Fix Our Schools campaign during the Spring 2014 Ontario provincial election…
At that time, we had not yet formally launched Fix Our Schools and the campaign only consisted of six parents who all lived in the Parkdale-High Park provincial riding. All six of us agreed that we would ask our local candidates and their canvassers about disrepair in our neighbourhood public schools.
We were pleasantly surprised when, a couple of weeks later, campaign flyers from these candidates were delivered to households and on those flyers, we saw the issue of disrepair in public schools was listed. There, in black and white, was proof that a few thoughtful, committed citizens talking about an issue could bring that issue to the forefront.
Our only regret was that we hadn’t started the Fix Our Schools campaign a year or two earlier so we would have been more organized and had a larger impact! Guess we’ll have to be patient and wait until the next provincial election…
In the meantime, we have a federal election underway and an opportunity for thoughtful, committed citizens to ask their local federal candidates about investing in schools as critical public infrastructure. As a thoughtful, committed citizen, please take advantage of this opportunity!