November Seismic Committee update

November 15, 2017 – Over the past few weeks the Seismic Upgrade Committee has worked to distribute our petition more widely. If you haven’t already signed, please do, and please consider sharing the link among your own networks. We have gathered contact information for the other 154 high risk schools in BC that have not yet been upgraded and invited the PACs (or principals where no current PAC contact information is available) to distribute the petition link among their communities.  In order to reach schools which are not high-risk, a similar invitation will be included in the “PAC to PAC” section of DPAC’s December newsletter, and BCCPAC has been approached for help in reaching non high-risk schools throughout the province. We thank the PACs at Bayview and General Gordon Elementary for already spreading word throughout their communities.
The current thinking of the committee is to balance maximum participation with maximum impact by keeping the petition active until the end of this term – if we were to collect 100 signatures from each of the schools that have already been sent the link, we would have over 10,000 signatures! – and forwarding the completed petition to the province before the work on the next budget (February 2018) is substantially completed.
We have also connected through social media with two other parent advocacy groups focused on seismic upgrades – Richmond Schools Stand United, and Seismic Safety for BC Schools, based in the tri-cities (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody) – and hope to learn from their experiences as well as gain their help in distributing the petition.
The committee will meet shortly to consider other possible initiatives for education and advocacy. Your input is welcome! If you are interested in taking part please contact committee chair Laura MacDougall at laura_macdougall@hotmail.com.