If it was a competition between the picketing teachers and the protesting students for honking support, as it stood on Wednesday, the students would win hands down.
Granted, the Richmond Secondary students picked a hot location — lunchtime at Brighouse Canada Line station — to plead for an end to the bitter feud between their teachers and the B.C. government.
The chants from the 25 or so teenagers at the hastily-arranged student rally, however, were drowned out by the almost constant blares from the horns of members of the public, truck drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers and so on.
Waving hand-made signs, saying “prioritize students” and “least involved, yet most affected,” the students seemed to have support from all corners.
Quite frankly, the students, who say they’re on neither side of the divide, have had enough and they are demanding to return to their school.
“We feel that, as a group, we’ve been cut out of the debate,” said one of the rally organizers, Nancy Ji, the captain of the school’s volleyball team, who should be in her second week of Grade 12.
“I’m applying for university soon and, without my grades from the June exams we missed, along with maybe missing first term results this year, it’s going to be difficult to apply to a U.S. university in December.
“We’re out here to put more pressure on the negotiations as we really, really need to get back to school.”
Nikol Grishin, who would normally be in Grade 11, is desperate to get back to Richmond Secondary to reconnect with all her friends and start working toward her dream of getting into medical school at UBC next year.
“Many of us are missing the sports as well and the whole school environment,” said Grishin, who also coaches sport at the school.
“I have a couple of books at home to review some stuff but it’s nothing close to the real thing. We all just want to get back to learning.”
Another student-led protest is scheduled for outside Richmond Public Library on Friday, Sept. 12 at 2:30 p.m., with speakers from university student unions expected.
