https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ycdsb-meeting-safe-space-stickers-1.6765341

Police were called in to deal with angry parents after they disrupted a Catholic school board meeting north of Toronto earlier this week over the issue of safe spaces for LGBTQ students.

The parents attended the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) meeting Tuesday evening in Aurora to oppose what are known as "safe space" stickers, which are used by some teachers to signal acceptance to LGBTQ children and teens.

Carlo Ravenna, one of the parents, spoke directly to the board about the stickers in a pre-approved deputation.

"They shouldn't say 'safe space.' They should say 'danger zone,'" he said at the meeting. "Preaching confusion in the guise of inclusivity and acceptance is truly disgusting."

The parents say the stickers, and any LGBTQ-inclusive messaging, are at odds with their Catholic faith.

Sheree di Vittorio, another parent who made a virtual deputation, told the board, "Catholic schools should not allow transgender or LGBT students to attend."

"It is most certainly not appropriate to engage kids to be open to these ideologies. There are biblical reasons why homosexuality is considered a sin … regardless of what Pope Francis may think," she said.

Excluding students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity would be a violation of the Ministry of Education's policy requirements for Equity and Inclusive Education in Ontario Schools and the Ontario Human Rights Commission's policies.

After the two deputations, a crowd of parents in the gallery became increasingly disruptive, the board said in a statement sent to CBC Toronto.

Shouting and cries of,"You're all pathetic!" and, "Stay away from our kids" can be heard on video of the meeting.

Eventually, the board members were forced to pause the meeting, York Regional Police were called in and many people in the gallery decided to leave on their own, according to the board's statement.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2023 08:05AM by anybody.

Well, there are two issues here. What can (or cannot) teachers put up on their classroom walls? Even in the public schools, there are often severe constraints about this. But that depends on the school and/or school district policy.

The second is whether LGBTQ+ students must be included in private schools, and it sounds like under Canadian law, they must be. But a Canadian will have to correct me about that if I'm wrong.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2023 08:36AM by summer.

Oh, they had plenty of rules back in her day, as well -- just different ones.

But not this bad I suspect...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/06/slavery-was-wrong-5-other-things-educators-wont-teach-anymore/


‘Slavery was wrong’ and 5 other things educators won’t teach anymore
To mollify parents and obey new state laws, teachers are cutting all sorts of things from their lessons


Excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Passages from Christopher Columbus’s journal describing his brutal treatment of Indigenous peoples. A data set on New York police’s use of force, analyzed by race.

These are among the items teachers have nixed from their lesson plans this school year and last, facing pressure from parents worried about political indoctrination, administrators wary of controversy, and a spate of new state laws restricting education on race, gender and LGBTQ issues.



“I felt very bleak,” said Lisa Childers, an Arkansas teacher who was forced by an assistant principal, for reasons never stated, into yanking Wollstonecraft’s famous 1792 polemic from her high school English class in 2021.

The quiet censorship comes as debates over whether and how to instruct children about race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality inflame politics and consume the nation. These fights, which have already generated at least 64 state laws reshaping what children can learn and do at school, are likely to intensify ahead of the 2024 presidential election. At the same time, an ascendant parents’ rights movement born of the pandemic is seeking — and winning — greater control over how schools select, evaluate and offer children access to both classroom lessons and library books.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2023 10:26AM by anybody.

That article is really horrific. Certain segments of our society are evidently opposed to the teaching of history.

Yep.

They are only opposed to teaching the parts of history they don't like.

Lies by omission.

"No Ma'am, that's not history."

--Hugh Nibley, tilting at windmills

Are we going back to this?

Really?

Not all families can flee, not all families have resources.


https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/julien-bryan/nazi-germany-1937/pupils-at-goldschmidt-jewish-private-school-in-nazi-germany


Julien Bryan recorded countless hours of film footage of Nazi Germany in 1937, depicting the German people at work and at play, Hitler Youth groups, Nazi leaders, daily life in cities and on farms, and evidence of anti-Jewish measures. He filmed the Goldschmidt Jewish private school shortly after Jews were no longer allowed to enroll in public schools (students in the classroom include Trudi Goldschmidt, the daughter of the school’s founder Dr. Leonore Goldschmidt, Margot Segall, who writes on the blackboard in Hebrew, and Stella Goldschlag, who passed as Aryan during the war and reportedly betrayed Jews in hiding). When Bryan returned to the United States, he regularly toured the country to lecture about what he had seen and to convey the threat that he thought the Nazis posed to peace in Europe. At a presentation in 1938, he said, “This is a special Jewish school. Probably by this time all of you realize… [there are] no Jewish faculty in any university, or high school, or elementary school…. This country which five years ago was… one of the most civilized among the countries in the civilized world. And back today to the Inquisition…. To my mind, in another five years there will be very few of these five hundred thousand Jews left alive.” The ‘wavy positive scribe’ or cross-hatching that constantly appears across the frame was added to the 35mm film print by a motion picture stock footage facility where Julien Bryan stored his original materials in the 1970s and 1980s. It was done to prevent people from copying the footage without permission. Unfortunately, the signature is deeply etched into the emulsion and cannot be repaired.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2023 07:58PM by anybody.

Summer, while there probably are some private Catholic schools in Ontario, most fall under the umbrella of public education, in that they are funded by tax dollars in the same way as the public (or secular) system is. We have the same situation in Alberta.

The particular school in the article is part of a "public" Catholic school district, but not "The" public system, which is secular. Very confusing, and a huge repetition of services at extra cost.

A couple of comments.

1) Canadian society, including its school system structure, is quite different from that in the U.S., and while some Canadians may view this issue like evangelical U.S. citizens do, they do not (yet) have the necessary sway to change the system to their way of thinking.

2) On a broader note, the Roman Catholic church has been doing for a long time what the Church of Jesus Christ for Latter Day Saints is trying to do now on this issue; namely, love the sin and hate the sinner. This has caused some real problems within the Catholic church between those who support LBGT issues and those who don't.

For the Roman church, the problem with ditching its stance on homosexuality goes directly back to the Bible. From the story of Sodom and Gomorah in the Book of Genesis to the rules surrounding homosexuality within the twelve tribes of Israel found in Deuteronomy to Paul's descriptions and proscriptions around the behavior in the book of Romans, those who wrote the Bible clearly saw homosexuality as something that was bad and should be opposed. If the Roman Catholic church was to side with its liberal wing tomorrow and say that homosexuality was not wrong, it would find itself with a revolt on its hands, including from cardinals and bishops in its own midst.

Maybe those same Canadian Catholic parents would be ok with a "safe space" to bury Native children who died at the hands of the Catholic Church?

Are they not able to connect any dots yet?