York Region students part of provincewide education cuts protest

Students walk out of class to voice opposition to increased class sizes, mandatory e-learning, funding cuts, OSAP changes

Yorkregion.com
April 5, 2019
Dina Al-Shibeeb and Teresa Latchford

Throngs of York Region students walked out of their classrooms April 4, armed with signs and petitions, to protest Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s cuts to education.
The local students joined more than 800 Ontario schools who were registered to participate in the provincewide walk out to voice their displeasure with the province's intentions to increase average class sizes from grades 4 to 12, implement mandatory online courses for high school students, cut funding for teachers and classroom materials, ban cellphones from classrooms and change OSAP funding.

Maple High School students held signs and chanted "say no to Doug Ford".

"I think a lot of us weren't there to vote (on this)," Grade 10 student Maryam Tosif said. "We are not the age to vote so this is our way of expressing what we want."

Tosif participated in the protest with a sign that read, “This sign would be creative but you’ve stopped funding the Arts,” a slogan that was reiterated in other schools. Critics believe that Ford slashing $1 billion in education spending would directly affect the arts.

Arianna Balouchi, a Grade 11 student at Richmond Hill High School, has at least one year to go before graduating and leaving her high school days behind, but she is still invested in making her voice heard.

"The government is making decisions without our input, and we won't compromise," she said, dubbing the education cuts "detrimental to our futures.
"With post-secondary fast approaching, we deserve to have a say in our own success without these changes barring our way.”

Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson has stated publicly that she believes larger class sizes will help make students more resilient.
Thompson's statement doesn't ring true for Balouchi.

"Studies show that it makes no difference to a student's character, but for some students who require more one-on-one attention from teachers, larger class sizes can be very harmful to their learning,” she said.

The cuts also spell out a regime for OSAP that will make it harder for “students to afford post secondary education”, Balouchi said.
Students at St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School in Aurora gather in front of the school April 4 to protest Ontario Premier Doug Ford's proposed cuts to education. - Susie Kockerscheidt/Metroland

The scene was much the same in the north end of York Region, as students of Aurora's St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School, École secondaire catholique Renaissance and Cardinal Carter Catholic High School and Newmarket's Sir William Mulock Secondary School among others stepped out of class and gathered in their school yards to voice their displeasure with the proposed education changes.

The planned walk out at G.W. Williams Secondary School was cancelled, but the students will continue with their planned writing campaign to let local MPPs know they oppose the changes.

Newmarket High School students could be seem marching down Mulock Drive toward Yonge Street.

Speakers at each event spoke about how larger class sizes, e-learning courses and OSAP changes will impact their quality of education. Many of the walkouts included petitions to sign and letter templates addressed to Ford, Thompson and local MPP for students to personalize and send.

Hundreds of St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School students lined Wellington Street in front of the school holding signs with slogans such as "education cuts never heal" and "this sign would have been more creative but you cut the arts programs".

Grade 12 student and event organizer Darcy O’Reilly realized just how much the changes would impact students directly when she did a little research.

"I really hadn’t heard much about it until I started to look into some of the changes the province wants to make," she said. "This is when I realized how much it will actually impact us as students."

Going from 22 to 28 students per class will mean less individual attention from the teacher for students who really need it, she said, noting this also means specialty classes such as visual arts and music might disappear, since the class size quota can’t be met.

"That's a lot of learning opportunity lost," she added.

As for students being required to complete a certain number of courses online, it won’t work for students who don’t thrive in an independent learning environment, according to O’Reilly.

"I also think it is really unfair to assume all students across Ontario have access to computers and the internet all the time," she said.
The goal of the peaceful protests were to educate students, start a discussion in the community and have the student voice heard, organizers said.