What’s happened is that Luke’s been alienated from everyone around him … It starts first thing in the morning. Luke doesn’t go to school a couple of miles down the road from us, the school where all the other kids in the neighbourhood go. Oh no, he gets collected in a taxi and goes miles off in the other direction.
1988
Parents have increasingly united and worked together to turn their visions from dreams into reality. “We have become a united voice, a resource to other parents and [the] community, and strength to one another. It is because we have stood together that we have seen many significant and exciting changes in our schools and our community,” says Alene Steinbach, a parent (see Chapter 6) . However, while advocacy by both associations and parent groups is important, it is individual parents who must carry on the real struggle. Each parent must decide whether or not to engage in the struggle for integration. The number of people making that choice is growing as parents tell their success stories:
For years I watched Mandy stand alone on the front lawn as all of the neighbourhood children rushed by her. I remember thinking, “Please, just one person stop and talk to her, just one of you ask her to play too … !” [O]ne of the most important benefits of being included [in a regular class is] that Mandy now has friends. [Her] original group of [three] friends has now more than quadrupled in number. They are her classmates, the people who speak up and support her, her advocates at school and in the playgrounds at home … It is her classmates who come to our home to call on her to come out to play, her friends who invite her to parties and dances, and the kids who are anxious to see her at Brownies, the Mall, gymnastics, figure skating, the ball diamonds, and the hockey rinks. These are the kids who can’t wait to introduce me to their parents as “Mandy’s mom. Mandy, she’s in our class.”
1991
