Efforts to raise Pride flag at York Region Catholic schools met with vehement opposition

YCDSB on verge of being deemed 'unsafe' for 2SLGBTQ+ community by Pflag

Yorkregion.com
May 3, 2023
Laura Broadley

The chants of protesters could still be heard in the York Catholic District School Board meeting room when a student, in a desperate plea to trustees, spoke out from the gallery describing, through tears, how they didn’t feel safe going to school.

“Thank you,” Chair Frank Alexander said, cutting the student off midsentence, before quickly saying the board was doing everything it could to ensure student safety.

Protesters’ chants of “Shame!” and “Leave our kids alone!” were in response to a delegation on April 25 by two YCDSB students requesting progress Pride flags be raised outside administration buildings and schools in the board’s boundary for the month of June.

Grade 12 students Patrick Mikkelsen and Isio Emakpor implored the board to raise the flags as a matter of urgency.

“2SLGBTQ+ students need to be represented and supported during the most formative years of their lives,” Mikkelsen said.

Mikkelsen and Emakpor started a petition in mid-March urging the school board to raise the flags in support of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. This came after two delegations at the Feb. 28 meeting cried foul over the distribution of stickers in schools featuring the progress Pride flag with the words “Safe Space” emblazoned on them. The petition has garnered more than 1,100 signatures at the time of publication.

“I can say from experience that during my 14 years in the school board I have never felt uplifted or supported. Instead, I have been shamed and I have been ‘othered,’” Emakpor said. “We should not be afraid to go to school. We should not have to endure listening to hateful rhetoric in a place that is supposed to support us.”

Mikkelsen and Emakpor were the second of two delegations speaking on progress Pride flags being raised. They followed former YCDSB student Myles Vosylius, 20, who said the “souls of students (were) in jeopardy” because of 2SLGBTQ+ symbols.

Several gallery members became disruptive, shouting hate speech toward the 2SLGBTQ+ community. After Alexander failed to gain control after several minutes, a number of gallery members were escorted from the meeting room by security.

Protesters stood just outside the meeting room doors, chanting anti-2SLGBTQ+ phrases for over 20 minutes before York Regional Police responded, for the third board meeting in a row.

Emakpor described feeling “disappointed” in how the board meeting ended.

“It was a little frightening but we had a bunch of supportive people around us who were able to comfort us,” she said.

Despite feeling “shaken up” following the meeting, Mikkelsen said the support they received from teachers, fellow students and the community was “more than we’d hoped.”

“The most powerful thing the board can do would be to raise the Pride flag during Pride Month. What (the board) really needs to hear is that we are their students, their staff members, their community members who believe that taking this action and taking this step toward inclusion and representation within the YCDSB is meaningful,” he added.

In their last few months of high school, Mikkelsen and Emakpor decided to raise their voice so future students don’t have to feel excluded the way they did the last four years.

The board hasn’t decided whether to fly the Pride flag in June, but is “involved in ongoing conversations with a number of stakeholders,” YCDSB said in a statement.

“Some members of our community are in favour of raising the Pride flag and showing support and acceptance for that community, and others worry that it is contrary to Catholic values,” said Mark Brosens, YCDSB senior manager of communications.

Brosens said a number of school boards across Ontario are having problems with disruptions at board meetings.

“Part of the issue I think we’re seeing in democratic institutions across Canada, and a school board is a democratic institution, is a heightened level of polarization and anger around a number of topics,” Brosens said. “What we were trying to do on (April 25) was have a conversation and learn what people thought about the idea of signalling support for the 2SLGBTQ+ community.”

Not being able to have a public conversation about the issue has left the board “deeply saddened,” Brosens said.

Grace Lee, spokesperson for Minister of Education Stephen Lecce, said in a statement that every student in Ontario should feel safe going to school.

“We know 2SLGBTQ+ students face serious bullying and disproportionately higher mental health challenges and that is why we expect school boards to respect and embrace these students,” she said.

Pflag York Region has said on June 1 it will designate the YCDSB at “Unsafe for the LGBTQ2IA Community of York Region” in the absence of meaningful action, something that’s new to the organization.

“It’s our attempt to try to draw as much attention to the issue as possible because it really illustrates to the school board that they’re out of runway,” said Tristan Coolman, Pflag York Region president.

The Catholic school boards in Toronto, Hamilton-Wentworth, Halton, Ottawa and Waterloo have raised Pride flags, something the York Region board has refused to do despite Pflag reaching out numerous times, Coolman said.

As for what “meaningful action” entails, Coolman said it’s more than raising a flag, but a conversation and action to support 2SLGBTQ+ students.