Two Richmond high school students are voicing their concerns about the two-month long school strike by launching an online petition, demanding a resolution before it affects the new school year.
Steveston-London Secondary School students Queena Zeng and George Tso launched the petition, titled: “The BC Government and Christy Clark, the BCTF, and Jim Iker must settle the negotiations before the upcoming school year”, on the change.org website on Aug. 1. As of Monday morning, 228 people had signed. The goal is to raise awareness about how the strike is affecting students and get as many signatures as possible, which will be presented to both parties in the dispute.
“When summer started, I was pretty concerned about the fall because I’ll be going into Grade 12,” Zeng, 17, said about why she started the petition. “This is my last year and there is this ongoing labour dispute.”
Both Zeng and Tso said the labour strife is cheating them and their fellow students of the support and activities that were bestowed to students in the past, who didn’t experience labour strife.
“Teachers were not allowed to work or speak to students before or after class,” Tso, 15, said.
“Extra curricular activities were cancelled, a lot of teacher-sanctioned events were cancelled.”
School dances, the annual end of year SharkFest Steveston-London and team sports were cancelled this year because teachers withdrew volunteering their free time for these events.
Tso also heard from students enrolled in Richmond secondary’s International Baccalaureate program about how the strike affects them. Part of that curriculum includes overseas volunteer work, papers and exams, which cannot be made up once international mandated deadlines pass.
“Our main goal, if this petition is successful, is almost an awareness campaign of how students are affected,” Tso said.
