#ontario schools

[gingerswagfreckles]

This is a long shot but I am really really seriously thinking about moving to Canada but can't find much information about the school system I'd be ideally teaching in eventually. Are there any Canadian teachers, especially Ontario teachers, who would be willing to chat with me/answer some questions? I can't get access to the bargaining agreement which would probably answer a lot of them.

[for3v3r-is-the-sweetest-con]

Why does no one talk about the emotional labour of being an educator!?

Some of these kids are real downers!

Saying things like “I’m going to fail” and “I hate this class” will not deter me. It will only make me tired. But you have nothing against my resilience and redbull.

And no, I’m not sending you to the office. I know that’s what you want. I don’t care.

But tomorrow the art club is doing a bake sale and I will find the change for the students who’s parents didn’t have any.

[retroness-is-fabulous]

[science70]

John McCrae Public School, Scarborough, Ontario, 1969.

Architect: Raymond Moriyama

Photography: Harold Barkley

[i-hate-it-here-too]

Back again with messy hair and stressy vibes

[coochiequeens]

The school that lets a teacher were giant fake breasts for “gender identity” is rejecting a teacher dress code. But will they still harass girls for dress code violations like if a bra strap is exposed?

Top administrators at a controversial school board in Ontario have released an information report rejecting the possibility of implementing staff dress code. The report comes just weeks after widespread backlash over one of their transgender teachers donning large fake breasts in front of students.

On November 9, the Halton District School Board (HDSB) held a Board of Trustees meeting to address routine school operations. During the meeting, a special report was presented in which assessment was made of human rights and legal considerations for a dress code enforcement among HDSB staff. 

The report was related to a September 21 school board motion requesting the Director of Education investigate whether it would be possible to implement a workplace dress code The motion had been proposed following international backlash over Kayla Lemieux, a teacher at Oakville Trafalgar High School. 

Images and videos of Lemieux wearing what appeared to be a massive prosthetic bust, complete with protruding nipples, had gone viral on social media in September. Lemieux was seen donning the inappropriate gear while instructing classes. 

According to students at Oakville Trafalgar, Lemieux had reportedly begun identifying as transgender in 2021. While Lemieux’s intentions have been the subject of debate, a YouTube video of a tech class uploaded by Lemieux demonstrated he had been presenting himself in this way since at least May — months prior to any widespread public knowledge.

Reduxx was first to confirm the origin and identity of the viral media, and the subsequent backlash resulted in Oakville Trafalgar becoming a hotspot for international media coverage and local protests as many noted Lemieux’s prosthetic breasts were inappropriate for a school setting.

Shortly after news of Lemieux’s appearance began to spread, the Halton District School Board issued a hasty email to the families of students at Oakville Trafalgar which appeared to defend Lemieux.

“We are aware of discussion on social media and in the media regarding Oakville Trafalgar High School. We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate to our community that we are committed to establishing and maintaining a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable and welcoming learning and working environment for all students and staff,” the email read, then deferring to the Ontario Human Rights Code.

“We strive to promote a positive learning environment in schools consistent with the values of the HDSB and to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all students, staff and the community, regardless of race, age, ability, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, cultural observance, socioeconomic circumstances or body type/size.”

Some noted that students at HDSB schools were subject to a dress code which explicitly forbade the display of genitals and nipples, and that it appeared Lemieux was being given special privileges due to his “gender expression.”

At the time, Canadian journalist Jon Kay noted that Lemieux’s attire was most commonly associated with a type of computer-generated animated pornography from Japan known as bakunyū, or, “exploding milk/breasts.”

Following sustained outrage, the Halton District School Board unanimously passed a motion on September 21 requesting a review into whether it would be possible to implement a workplace dress code.

On November 8, the information report associated with the review was completed and submitted to the Board of Trustees, and presented at the Board meeting the next day.

In the report, the HDSB Superintendent of Human Resources, Sari Taha, and Director of Education, Curtis Ennis, wrote that the implementation of an enforceable dress code with respect to employee professionalism would “expose the Board to considerable liability.”

Taha and Ennis provided an analysis of the labor law and human rights code considerations if the Board were to establish a staff dress code, placing special emphasis on gender identity.

” … it is important to recognize the impact that dress code policies can have on members of the transgender community. Most notably, it is important for employers to make allowances to ensure that these employees are able to express themselves in accordance with their lived gender.”

It continues: “Even if a dress code is implemented for non-discriminatory reasons, it would likely be found to be discriminatory where it adversely affects an employee or group of employees on the basis of their Code protected grounds.” 

The report concludes by dismissing the possibility of a dress code as having any impact on the professionalism of staff, writing: “… we note that if the employer desires to foster a culture of professionalism, respect, equity and inclusion, a truly reasonable and non-discriminatory dress code or grooming standards would most likely fail to yield the intended results.”

During the November 9 School Board meeting, Taha, who had co-authored the report, firmly rejected the implementation of a dress code, citing an undue burden on “women and persons of the other identity community.”

Following Taha’s presentation of the report, HDSB Trustee Tanya Rocha clarified with Tara that implementing a dress code policy for staff would “fail” and be a step backwards.

“All other institutions are removing dress codes and there really is no need for one here… and if we even tried, it would not pass all of the litmus tests you mentioned,” Rocha said.

To another trustee, Taha stated: “Inherently, dress codes are adversely impacting women and other groups, disproportionately.”

The Halton District School Board has received ample criticism for their handling of the situation with Lemieux. Despite widespread outrage, Board members have explicitly refused to comment on the appropriateness of Lemieux’s attire, and have defended his right to wear the prosthetic breasts on multiple occasions.

The sole statement HDSB has made in relation to the Lemieux situation was on September 20, when the Board clarified that the name “Stephen Hanna” had been incorrectly circulated as being associated with the individual in the photos and videos. 

HSDB also declined to confirm the identity of the individual as being Kayla Lemieux, but Reduxx had verified that name through Oakville Trafalgar’s own staff directory and associated G-suite profiles.

Since September, HDSB has refused repeated requests to provide Reduxx with Lemieux’s Ontario College of Teachers registration number, which is intended to be public information.

Lemieux is reportedly still wearing the prosthetic breasts on a day-to-day basis.

By Anna Slatz Anna is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Reduxx, with a journalistic focus on covering crime, child predators, and women's rights. She lives in Canada, enjoys Opera, and kvetches in her spare time.

[dove-da-birb]

the mention of Cotten eyed Joe was a grave reminder of 4th-8th grade….

Celebration of Dance; Cotton Eyed Joe, Move It, Cha Cha Slide, The Hamsterdance Song

Hated them as a kid, love them now

[thedeafprophet]

i will say The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald hits harder when you live by Superior

[rogersonlaw]

Bullying in Ontario Schools: Addressing the Challenges, Ensuring Safety

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[muirneach]

okay i actually seriously finally submitted my university application like for real. clap and cheer and pray?

[same-name-supremacy]

I’ve seen so many people think the td cast are American (minus the American characters and the characters from other countries) when it’s been stated many times they are in fact Canadian

And as a Canadian I will make sure you know they are in fact from Canada

[retroness-is-fabulous]

[gynecologistmsfrizzle]

it is very very frustrating to see people across the political board abuse the word antisemitism for their own purposes, because it means that when legitimate antisemitism does happen— which it does, often, on the left— it becomes impossible to point it out. there’s an MPP in ontario who was censured for quote-unquote antisemitism because, as it’s being framed, she ‘spoke out in support of palestinians.’ she objects to the idea that that can ever be antisemitic, which looks fine prima facie. what is missing from that story is that she made her statement— which asserted that the only appropriate response to 10/7 was to “end all occupation of Palestinian land”— on October 10th.

calling for the dissolution of israel as a state is one thing (with some very important caveats, you can argue that that’s not an inherently antisemitic thing to say). even saying that violence in israel/palestine will continue until israel is dissolved, there’s a fairly solid case to be made that that’s not any kind of threat but rather a statement of fact— given that israeli violence in palestine has been a constant for as long as israel has existed, and the way israel presently operates relies largely on that violence. so sure, devoid of context, both those things are reasonable to say.

but calling for the dissolution of israel, and saying that violence will continue until that dissolution is achieved, less than 72 hours after the worst mass killing of jewish civilians since the holocaust took place there? come on. come ON. come the fuck on. imagine if she’d said “the only way to end violence against american civilians is to dissolve the united states” three days after 9/11, when hospitals were still overflowing and manhattan was being evacuated en masse, when there weren’t even accurate counts of the dead.

there wouldn’t be a question of whether that was acceptable. but somehow, there IS a question here. it’s almost like there’s some kind of millennia-old history of oppression that created a pervasive subconscious bias, influencing how we think and talk about israeli civilians and how people calculate the value of their lives. shame we don’t have a word for that.

[handweavers]

re: canadian high school system(s), my caveats are that each province has a different education system and things aren't really standardized across provinces, but in ontario there's specific classes in your last couple years of high school that you need to take to pursue certain STEM degrees, but if you're studying anything in the humanities and you did grade 12 university level english you're good to go. the big thing i strongly disagree with about the ontario hs system is the college vs university track they put you on from grade 9 onwards, because if you get stuck on the college track for whatever reason and you want to go to uni you're fucked, and whether you take college or uni level classes in HS has a lot of social stigma and often unfairly places/forces black and indigenous students into the college track, which can prevent them from attending university or make it much harder and more expensive to upgrade to university by going to college first. but those systemic inequalities exist in every western school system/classism and racism aren't unique to canadian education unfortunately, and abolishing the college/uni track system in ontario is being considered by the gov at present. however, at least in ontario i didn't have to pick my university major when i was uh...14 yrs old lol.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Ontario Ministry of Education will not mandate mask-wearing when students return to class this fall, Education Minister Stephen Lecce has confirmed.

“As is the case with every jurisdiction in Canada, masks will not be required in Ontario schools,” he said in an emailed statement to CP24. “We have taken significant action to improve ventilation in every single school, deploying 100,000 HEPA filter units and improving mechanical ventilation using the highest MERV-13 quality filters.”

[...]

Lecce’s statement comes as Ontario enters a possible new wave of the coronavirus pandemic, due in large part to BA.2.86, a highly mutated new variant of the virus. As well, recent wastewater monitoring shows an uptick in the virus compared to an all-time low in Ontario in June of this year.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[overly-hubristic-mad-scientist]

I’m on the fucking edge