Thousands of students stage walkout to support teachers
Facebook-led protest balloons
Waving signs, chanting slogans and — at Vincent Massey, where it was Hawaiian day — wearing grass skirts and leis, students walked out of class Wednesday to protest the Putting Students First Act.
The legislation, put forward by the Ontario Liberals, froze wages and ended banked sick day payouts on retirement for public school teachers. In response, teachers at some schools have been participating in work- to- rule actions, leaving students without afterschool sports, orientations and meet-the-teacher nights.
The story of Windsor’s student day of action is becoming a familiar one: it all started with a Facebook post. Jacob Lapointe, a Grade 11 student at Massey high school, invited his peers to walkout in protest.
It ballooned from there. Lapointe said students from other local high schools wanted to join, so he expanded the event, renaming it the WindsorEssex GECDSB Student Walk-out. As of Wednesday afternoon, he said more than 2,200 students had pledged their support online.
“I’m really excited about this,” Lapointe said. “So far, this is the biggest one-day protest in Ontario for this bill, and I’m pretty happy about that.”
At Massey, students mostly kept to the sidewalks, but it was a different story at Kennedy. That high school is at a busy intersection at Tecumseh Road and McDougall Street, but the cars whizzing past didn’t stop students from spilling onto the curb and jaywalking across the street.
With a rowdy atmosphere and students kicking a football around outnumbering those holding protest signs, co-op teacher Jim Borrelli said he was skeptical that every student who walked out of class was motivated by a sense of civic duty. Borrelli said he appreciated the support for his collective bargaining rights, but a walkout wasn’t the way to show it.
“I don’t like the idea of missing school. I think they could have done it in a different, alternative way,” he said. “And there’s also a danger factor in right now, crossing the road. Hard to control the mob at this point.”
Scott Scantlebury, the public relations officer for the Greater Essex County District School Board, said the protest presented a challenge.
“First and foremost, we discourage any activities that interrupt the instructional day,” he said. “But on the other hand, we encourage students to think critically, to express themselves, to have a social conscience, to be active in their communities. And that is what they’re doing.”
Scantlebury said the protest provided a great opportunity for teachers to capitalize on their students’ new-found interest in politics. And some of them could use a lesson or two, such as the group of students which marched to city hall despite the fact the contract negotiations and legislation are provincial issues.
“They’d be better off heading to civics class if they’re headed to city hall, because city hall has nothing to do with it,” Scantlebury said.
Most schools set aside a block of time when students were allowed to protest without getting in trouble, but they were expected to return to class after that. Scantlebury said he didn’t know exactly how many schools participated in the walkout, since it was entirely student-led.
It was up to each school to decide how to discipline students who didn’t return to class, Scantlebury said. Principals contacted by The Star either declined to comment on student discipline or did not return phone calls.
Andrea French, a Grade 12 student at Kennedy, said she walked out to oppose the bill and support her teachers, but was also concerned students were being put in the middle and events like prom might be in jeopardy.
“I just want everything to go back to normal. I just want everyone to be happy,” she said. “We want our extracurricular activities back. We want to learn, but we want to have fun, too.”