Let the kids run
Some Toronto elementary students were told they couldn’t run. Then, suddenly, they could. The final surprise was that their effort just wouldn’t count for anything.
You just ran your heart out kid, well done, but it doesn’t count. Why? Well, your teachers are mad at the government so they didn’t register you for the race. Is that really what anyone wants to tell the kids whose cross-country meet on Thursday became ground zero in the ongoing teachers’ protest?
Most adults know better than to fight in front of the kids, let alone shove them smack dab in the middle of a dispute they can do absolutely nothing about. In this case, pretty much everyone did the exact opposite.
The teachers in more than half the schools refused to participate or register their students for the meet. This is part of their “pause” in extracurricular activities to protest the contracts that were imposed on them through legislation. The school board, trying to please everyone, flip-flopped on whether students in unregistered schools could participate. And some parents who knew their kids weren’t officially allowed in brought them to run the race anyway.
The board needs to try to clean up this unfortunate event as best it can. Kids who placed well at the Ashbridge’s Bay meet should get to go to the city finals, whether they were properly registered or not. And teachers, boards and parents need to come up with a workable plan before they visit a similar mess on the kids who are looking forward to their cross-country meets next week.
Public school teachers have every right to be angry with Premier Dalton McGuinty who, with the help of the Conservatives, legislated a two-year contract that curbs their right to strike, freezes the overall wage bill and ends the practice of cashing out sick days on retirement. But they are wrong to take it out on children.
Cancelling or limiting students’ access to sports teams and school clubs, as many teachers are doing, is not going to change the government’s mind about its legislation. Taxpayers simply cannot afford a more generous settlement.
What teachers are doing, though, is annoying parents who should be their biggest allies and punishing children who just want to run.