B.T. Lindley P.S. student initiates anti-bullying campaign  

Grade 5 Bruce T. Lindley Public School student Tommy Reader and his friend Jesse Booth, grade 6 at St. Mark’s Catholic School, never dreamed how far their anti-bullying campaign would go! The idea for the campaign came to them during a snow day in January. Their plan was to bring attention to the issue of bullying by getting people to wear pink on February 25th.

The students wrote letters to their principals, as well as to Burlington’s Mayor, Directors of Education at both Halton school boards, their MP & MPP, the Premier of Ontario, the Ministry of Education and the local Halton newspaper. The result was a day of pink that spread from Burlington all the way to Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

At Bruce T. Lindley Public School, Tommy’s schoolmates wrote messages on pink strips of paper about what they could do to prevent bullying. Younger students used the messages of the school’s conflict management program, Kelso’s Choices. Older students wrote their own messages based on their own experiences. The messages were joined together to make a chain to show the impact they could make if they stood together to say “No to Bullying”.

At the Board Meeting held on February 25th, Tommy and Jesse were recognized for their dedication and the stand they took to prevent all forms of bullying.