Students at Iroquois Falls Secondary School are planning to join a province-wide walkout Thursday afternoon, April 4th, to protest education changes being brought in by the Doug Ford government.
Student ambassador Kianna Goulet is spearheading the IFSS participation. She says among the things they’ll be protesting are funding cuts to autism programs, larger class sizes, and the mandatory four credits a student will have to earn through online courses.
“You have to be very self disciplinary to be able to work on that on your own time without a teacher encouraging you to get your work done,” she says. “I know a number of people who are unable to e-learn and they’re (the provincial government) now making it mandatory.”
While Goulet encourages all IFSS students to participate, she can’t guarantee that there won’t be repercussions. She is personally willing to risk disciplinary action from school administration.
“No one has to participate in they don’t want to,” she says. “ That’s completely up to their decision, but I strongly encourage everyone to. We do have a large group of students who are interested in it and who’ll be walking out that day.”
Goulet says teachers are being supportive, but only off the record, to avoid getting themselves in trouble.
The walkout is planned to begin at 1:15pm April 4th at all participating schools.