Sit-in planned for SJAM
Posted Dec 10, 2012 04:44:01 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Hundreds of students at Sir John A MacDonald Secondary School in Waterloo are staging a sit-in today, the same day after school sports and clubs are being cancelled.
They are protesting both the provincial government’s Bill 115, and the suspension of extra-curricular activities by teachers’ unions.
Fifth year student Adam Okeil tells 570 News there is a lot of anger from students about the teachers’ job action.
Okeil says he organized a Facebook page to give students at outlet to express this frustration.
It has since attracted hundreds of students not only from his school, but from schools around the region and the province.
Okeil says from there, they decided to hold a sit-in as a protest.
Students will gather in the gymnasium at 12:25 this afternoon, just after lunch.
Okeil says teachers have been mainly supportive of the move, even shifting around classroom lessons today to accomodate students participating in the sit-in.
Okeil says they understand why the teachers are suspending after-school activities, and he says they are appreciative of the extra time teachers spend with them.
But he says the message to the teachers and the government is that at the end of the day, it’s the students who are affected most.
Okeil says they are telling both sides “do what you have to do, but find a deal quickly.”
