Is there anything as precious to parents as their children?
There’s concern over the possibility of schools hiding from parents the fact that a son or daughter is transitioning either through pronouns, name change or seeking medical interventions.
School walk-outs and parent protests have been organized across Canada as a 1 Million Person March & Peaceful Protest.
Schools have always been considered an extension of the home. Unless, that is, you were an Aboriginal family living in Canada in the early 1900s. Then not so much.
The inclusion of parents was part of the Manitoba government’s appeal to the public during the K-Gr 12 upgrade of education.
Yet, recently the role of teachers in Manitoba became a whole lot more complicated, drawing them into potentially conflicting situations regarding a student’s gender. I say that, based on a review of a document on the Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning website:
www.edu.gov.mb.ca
The PDF document supports students’ individuality and right to dress in a manner consistent with their gender identity or gender expression, within the constraints of divisional and school dress code policies and to take part in school life.
It goes on to say, “However, given the sensitivity of trans or gender diverse student disclosure, a gender transition plan may need to be developed by appropriate school staff… preferably with the involvement of the parents/guardians, unless it is objectively not in the best interest of the student to do so….”
The bottom line:
“Confidential information about a student must not be shared even with the parents/guardians without the student’s consent, unless there are overarching safeguarding reasons for sharing the information.”
The school, in that case, becomes the arbiter and protector of the student, not the parent.
Next door, Premier Scott Moe in Saskatchewan is upholding parents’ right to be included in what happens at school, including sexual orientation matters: “Moe intends to turn pronoun, sex ed policies into law in Sask.” reported by Saskatoon / 650 CKOM
The report says that Moe’s government “feels parents have a right to be involved in their child’s school, classroom and education.”
“When asked about where the children come into these policies, Moe said simply that children are a part of their families.
“‘When you have families closer to our children’s education it makes for a much more responsive and, I think, valuable education system in the province,’ said Moe.
“There are some critics of the policies who believe that, when creating education policies, what’s best for the children should be the first consideration. In response, Moe said those same critics are saying that parents aren’t there to support their children, and he disagrees with that.”
A cross-Canada march has been organized for next week, Wednesday, Sept. 20, calling on parents of every ethnicity, culture, religion or of no religion, to consider what their children need. This will be held in major cities. There’s a protest planned in Winnipeg, in Brandon, Steinbach and Winkler/Morden.
Locations are listed on the website blueprintforcanada.ca.
Some issues are listed on the Blueprint for Canada and they include:
- Parental rights in public K-12 education
- Gender ideology in the K-12 educational curriculum.
- Age-inappropriate sexual content in school libraries.
The site says medical “gender-affirming care" for minors under the age of 18 should be banned because children do not have the brain development, maturity, wisdom, or life experience to fully appreciate the long-term consequences of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures designed to emulate the appearance of the opposite sex.
Because children are vulnerable, and the precious future of our nation, it is time these issues come to public attention.
