Advocacy

In order to ensure the value of outdoor education is recognized beyond COEO, we have taken an active role in promoting the multiple benefits of this approach to learning.

To this end, the organization has recently taken steps to create:

Greater presence on social media
Raised awareness through publications in public media
Meetings with members of the provincial government to advocate on behalf of endangered outdoor programs and recent funding cuts to Ontario’s public education system
Statement on The Value of Outdoor Experiential Education (OEE)

We believe Outdoor Experiential Education (OEE) is a valuable educational investment that pays for itself.
• It will help in achieving the goals in Education That Works For You
• It improves youth physical and mental health
• It improves youth resilience to better prepare students for post-secondary education and the world of work
• It promotes lifelong emotional, physical and spiritual well-being

For these reasons, COEO advocates for the following government actions:
1. Acknowledge the value of OEE by preserving current levels of funding, and educational opportunities, for OEE in future school years;
2. Maintain a mix of local and further afield OEE locations
3. Preserve continued development of curriculum-based OEE through appropriately qualified OCTs, with the teaching carried out by both OCTs and instructor specialists.

CURRENT PROJECTS

One of COEO’s five goals is to “promote the multiple values of outdoor education, both within and beyond our profession.” In the past, we tended to gloss over earnest advocacy to external stakeholders. We seemed to operate on an unspoken assumption that others would just “get it” when it comes to the great and lasting benefits of OEE, but multiple closures and withdrawals of funding have shown otherwise.

For the last twenty years or so, COEO has periodically hired the services of Sussex Strategy Group, a well-established and respected public affairs firm that supports businesses and associations in navigating and shaping public opinion, influencing government policy, and advocating on our behalf. Their support has yielded multiple tangible benefits, including the designation of specific funding for OEE by the Ontario Liberal government when Kathleen Wynne was our Minister of Education.

In light of the current Ontario government’s removal of such funding, COEO has once again deemed it necessary to make use of Sussex Strategy, and will continue to work with them throughout the next year. We’re grateful to have the support of the board’s Advocacy subcommittee leading this work, including past Presidents Liz Kirk and Grant Linney, as well as current BOD members Hilary Coburn, Peggy Cheng, and Devin Mutic.

Same old, Same old by Grant Linney

During the mid-1980’s, Cathy Beach (former COEO President) and John Aikman (former COEO Membership Secretary) warned the rest of us. Their boards in Peterborough and Hamilton respectively were among the first to close outdoor education programs and centres in the name of fiscal responsibility. Since then, we outdoor educators have endured repeated cuts to what proverbial bean counters refer to as “non-essential.” It seems to go in cycles. There are reprieves and relative calm. Then it starts all over again, including now. Good Grief!!

Outdoor educators (largely under the auspices of COEO) have fought back, each time learning to better articulate what Canadian author and former COEO member James Raffan refers to as a deep and enduring “knowledge of the heart.” We have taken great photos of kids engaged in all manner of outdoor experiential learning. We have written and published two comprehensive and compelling research summaries. We have written opinion pieces for The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star. We have done our very best to convey the powerful and lasting connections between outdoor learning and the following:

· mental and physical wellbeing in their multiple dimensions

· curriculum understanding and retention

· character and team building

· the environmental connections that we so desperately need to address the most pressing global issues of our time. It’s quite simple: if we don’t spend time outdoors, if we continue to allow the extinction of outdoor experiences, we will not care enough to act, and we ourselves will be doomed to extinction. Am I overstating our case? I believe that the answer is an unequivocal no.

Over the past seventeen years, OEE in Ontario has been riding a positive wave of support that is directly related to COEO’s advocacy efforts with then Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne. When she was a trustee for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), she was a vocal supporter of TOES, the Toronto Outdoor Education Schools. As provincial Minister of Education, she responded to our 2007 Research Summary as well as positive lobbying and translated this support into specific OEE funding for every public board in the province. Last fall, COEO was alarmed when the Progressive Conservative government rolled these monies into more general funding where the boards are obliged to pick and choose from

several competing priorities. And now, the other shoe has dropped. While the TDSB continues to value OEE, the Ford government has appointed a provincial investigator to review their books and, before the end of May, to make recommendations as to deep cuts that will cut the board’s significant deficit. This is on the heels of an already-completed Auditor General 18-month review of the TDSB which was tabled last fall. And, of course, additional provincial funding is not an option. The writing is on the wall, and it does not look at all good.

What COEO members can do:

· Regardless of your location in the province, you need to speak up for OEE and condemn our government’s deplorable removal of support for these vital and highly beneficial programs … this can be done with letters (better than emails) to your MPP as well as to media outlets

· If you do see news items re OEE, please write letters to the editor, e.g., COEO is hoping to get opinion pieces published both in The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail

· Use your social media to spread the word

· Stay tuned for more news and potential courses of action

Submitted by longtime COEO member and mad old fart, Grant Linney

PAST PROJECTS

The Ontario government recently launched a public consultation about how to ensure the health benefits of nature are fully realized for all Ontarians. This is part of the Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan commitment to provide people with more opportunities to enjoy provincial parks and support the worldwide Healthy Parks Healthy People movement.

On August 16th, 2019, Jeff Yurek, Ontario’s Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks, sent a letter to each of the province’s 36 Conservation Authorities, ordering them to “wind down” unnecessary programs that do not relate to their “core mandate.” At least one Conservation Authority had already chosen to cut their Children’s Environmental Education program in response to funding cuts. Responses to this letter include: Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority’s CAO Doug Hevenor’s response to Minister Yurek’s letter and COEO’s An Open Letter of Support for Conservation Authority Staff. Please take a minute to let your local Conservation Authority and MPP know how much you value environmental education programs and don’t want to see them cut from the core mandate of Ontario’s Conservation Authorities.

You can read our July 16th, 2019, submission to Minister of Education Stephen Lecce here: Letter to Minister Lecce from COEO.

Thank you to Marit Stiles, NDP Official Opposition Critic for Education, for meeting with us and for writing an excellent Letter of Support for Outdoor Education Centres, June 28 2019

Want to get involved in advocating for OEE in Ontario? Please contact your local MPP and request that they write a letter of support, with similar requests for action from the new Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce. https://www.ola.org/en/get-involved/contact-mpp

Take a minute to read and share the recent Op-Ed article published on July 15th, 2019, in the Toronto Star entitled The Value of Outdoor Education. Maybe you can write a similar article about your OEE experience and submit it to a local media outlet?

Please follow our social media accounts and keep an eye on local media as we continue our advocacy efforts.

Twitter (@COEOoutdoors https://twitter.com/coeooutdoors)

Instagram (@COEOoutdoors https://www.instagram.com/coeooutdoors/)

Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/coeo.org/)