On this day in 1990, parents of Yarralumla Primary School founded Canberra's first SOS (Save our Schools) lobby group. The group hoped to eventually have a branch in every Canberran public school and sent a message to the ACT government about its defence of the education system.
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However, the group's journey was off to a rocky start as they had their two SOS banners pulled down from public view.
Spokeswoman for the group, Lynn Russell, said a decent amount of money was spent to have the banners professionally made. An individual moving around in a litter patrol vehicle removed the signs a couple of hours after they had been attached to the Kent Street overpass.
As the signs were being removed, one of the parents of the group spotted it and immediately placed it back up under their watchful gaze.
Ms Russell said special permission could be obtained to hang banners in public places. Janny Hoy, one of the convenors of SOS, reiterated no school was immune from the planned education cuts.
Education minister Gary Humphries laid out the criteria for school closures, including student numbers, size of buildings, access and operating costs. He said the number of larger schools of at least 400 would reduce.
It led to some confusion among the group. Hoy said "some people ... just took a look at the numbers and just thought that any school with 400 in it was safe" however, "conversations with the government have led us to believe that even though we under the number we are safe [because of the other criteria] ... so what is the priority"?
The group's long-term aspiration was to convince more schools to set up their own SOS chapter to pressure the government to halt plans to close up to 25 schools.
Fast forward to today, the SOS still has a strong presence and often posts updates on various happenings within the education system.
