Students at Chippewa Intermediate and Secondary school joined with their provincial counterparts in a province-wide protest against plans to scrap parts of the sex education curriculum.
The students gathered on the front lawn of the school waving handmade signs chanting “forwards, not backwards.”
Grade 12 student Livy Lyle who helped organize the protest at Chippewa, said they wanted to take a stand because it is such an important issue.
“We didn’t want people angry without a cause. We didn’t want them just skipping class. We wanted to make sure it was informative,” said Lyle.
Booths were set up inside the school’s gym explaining changes to the curriculum and why it is an issue.
“We had one booth where we had a donation spot and were selling popcorn for the women’s Transition House in North Bay because a lot of those women are affected by sexual abuse,” said Lyle.
“If our schools aren’t teaching about consent and safe sex for LGBTQ2S+ members, and there’s a whole long list of things they’re trying to get rid of in our sex-ed curriculum, then they’re not going to be taught. This should not fall on us. It’s not our place. We could be misinformed. We’re being taught everything else about health in there.”
Lyle suggested the government’s decision could have serious consequences.
“It’s promoting a culture of sexual abuse and it is disregarding an entire population of students at our school. And it’s just going to promote a generation that believes in discrimination and is ignorant and misinformed about some issues.”
Grade 11 student Jaylan Leblond runs the Pride club at the school and is the diversity representative on student council.
She calls the changes to the sexual education curriculum “unacceptable.”
“It is completely and utterly unacceptable. We need to take a stand before it is too late to teach the younger generation about all of the change and progression that has happened over the years before they are misinformed and become bigots,” said Leblond.
“I have heard from a couple friends of mine that their parents did talk to them about the curriculum changes, and encouraged them to come to the protest today.”
Michelina Beam, a trustee with the Near North District School Board, who is not running in this election, attended the rally.
“I fully support the students in this protest. I’m so proud of our student voice. This gives us great hope for our next generation that they’re so willing to speak up on this issue,” said Beam.
“As a board, we issued a statement in August in support of maintaining the 2015 curriculum, and if further parent consultation was an issue, that the PC government should be using 2015 as the starting point and going out to consult further. We believe the material in the 2015 curriculum is very important to the well-being of our students, and we felt very strongly that it should be upheld,” said Beam.
“We also were really disheartened to hear that they had cancelled the writing sessions this summer for the addition of Indigenous content to the school curriculum.”
Student organizers are pleased with the support they received.
“This was mostly about informing our students and getting them passionate about this. We got a lot of the grade 7 and 8’s and that’s really important to me because curriculum changes will affect them mostly,” said Lyle.
“I know that students protesting isn’t necessarily going to make a snap change in the government, but I’m hoping that at the very least, they see that we’re really passionate about this issue,” said Lyle.
“We want people to go home, talk to their parents, call our provincial representative and city council. We just wanted to generate some conversation.”
