Dear Editor,
Re: “Fire lit under LGBTQ issue,” News, Sept. 16.
It was interesting reading all the reasons Dr. Eric Yung, school trustee, gave for not implementing specific references to sexual orientation in its code of conduct.
It would be humorous if it wasn’t so tragic for LGBTQ students. Unlike most school boards in B.C., especially the Lower Mainland, who were proactive and saw the need for extra protection for their most vulnerable students, and most importantly had the will to make changes, Richmond School Board has continually allowed their ideology to delay and deny the protection that was obviously needed.
Even when teachers and students decided that something had to be done and started making classrooms special places with rainbow signs for LGBTQ students, the school board still refused to move.
What a disgrace it is for Richmond that this school board’s homophobia is so entrenched that it was prepared to allow vulnerable students to continue to suffer by claiming that nobody had approached them to make any changes with regards to the code of conduct.
Yung claims it is “about time” that the B.C. government is calling for these changes, and admits that “we have to be compliant by the end of the year.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement from a school board that should be in the vanguard of proactive change.
Alan Halliday
Richmond
