U.S. travel ban not in students’ best interest

Some Toronto District School Board (TDSB) students are challenging the board’s decision to ban travel to the United States and they deserve to have their voices heard.

Last spring, with an executive order to limit travel from six Muslim-majority countries looming, school boards across Canada started grappling with whether to allow trips across the border.

There was concern some students could be turned back. The TDSB published a statement explaining that the 24 previously approved trips would go ahead but no further trips would be approved for the foreseeable future.

The one opportunity I had to take students to the United States was life-changing for me and for many of my students. The junior high school team I coached had won a spot in the finals of the Science Olympiad that was to take place in Raleigh, N.C. So, with incredible colleague, family and community support we embarked on preparations. None of us could know how much it would change our lives. While I understand the messages around equity and inclusion the school board’s decision was meant to send, I also understand it means a few individuals will be asked to pay a disproportionately high price to send it.

And now, those individuals are starting to make their voices hear. Maisha Fahmida and Maheep Bagha from Bloor Collegiate Institute are among them.

The Grade 11 students were part of a team that went to Anaheim, Calif., for an international business conference and competition last April.

This year, under the ban, even if they qualify they wouldn’t be allowed to go. Bagha told CBC, “You meet people, you network with people, and it’s like people from across the world. It’s not something you can get in Toronto; an event of that magnitude you can’t get anywhere else.”

For some students, a school trip abroad is in addition to the personal opportunities they enjoy — an enrichment activity.

For others, it is the only opportunity to travel.

As a new immigrant, my family couldn’t afford to go on family trips. However, we could manage to pay for each child to go as part of a school group.

For other students, it is the key to achievement — recognition, scholarships and opportunities. For a few, it might be the only door. Opportunities offered through school are especially important to students with limited family resources.

Travelling with students always comes with risks and rewards. My16-plus-hour-bus ride to Raleigh with over a dozen teenagers was not complicated by an executive order but I do remember talking about crossing the border, even pre 9/11.

The students were part of a team but individuals on that team did not want to prevent their teammates from participating if they couldn’t.

They wanted their projects to be part of the competition even if they couldn’t take them there themselves. Luckily, we crossed without issue.

Students from that team went on to be leaders in high school, win international competitions, excel at university and start careers in STEM fields.

For many of those students it was their first chance to test themselves on an international level and realize they could compete.

The scale of competition was something that could not be replicated anywhere on our side of the border.

It’s possible many of the students would have been just as successful if they had not participated in the

Science Olympiad but many of them have told me it was a turning point for them.

We’ll never know how much that trip affected things for each individual but I know it affected all of us to some level.

By deciding that no more trips to the U.S. will be approved for the foreseeable future, the TDSB and school boards that make similar decisions are affecting lives. Many students have worked for years to be competitive at an international level.

Also, it takes years for schools to develop programs that can prepare students to be this competitive.

Preventing students and teachers from attending competitions at the highest level will set these programs back many years.

A recommendation to amend the travel ban is to be discussed at a board meeting on Wednesday and students who are hoping to travel to the U.S. for international competitions should have their voices heard.