Danforth Tech students join provincial walkout over class size

Local councillor, trustee add support to student protests

Walkout at Danforth Tech
Councillor Paula Fletcher, centre, joins school trustees and students in province-wide walkouts.  Samuel Kavanagh/Toronto Observer

Students from Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute joined their fellow students across Ontario in a walkout on Thursday during noon hour.

The Danforth Tech students poured out of the front doors, brandishing signs that said “School Zone, Speed Limit 35 kph, not Class Size” and “RIP Our Future,” and chanting slogans against Premier Doug Ford’s changes to Ontario’s educational system, especially the proposal to expand the cap on class size.

Toronto-Danforth councillor Paula Fletcher and school trustee Jennifer Story joined the  student protestors outside the school.

They attended at the request of the students, they said.

“We are with you and will stay for this fight,” Fletcher told the protesters.

The Ontario-wide demonstrations “may be one of the largest student protests ever,” Story said to wild cheer.  

Fletcher and Story were touring schools in the ward, offering solidarity to the student protesters.

The Danforth Tech students proceeded to march down the street and around the school, stopping to let passersby know how they felt.

Lindsy Wallace, a student in the learning disability class, was said she was upset about the move to increase class sizes.

“The classes are already too big,” she said. “As someone with a learning disability, I especially need that one on one time with my teacher.”

The lack of one-on-one time with instructors was a common complaint among the students.

Also making her displeasure known was Masuda Mahazabin, one of the student organizers of the walkout.

“Our education is supposed to empower us these,” she said. “Cutbacks are eliminating our future,” she said in an interview.

Mahazabin then retook her place in the march, adding her voice into the chant. It was soon subsumed into the mass of chanting students becoming indistinct from the rest.  

“They cut back, we fight back,” and “we the students, just say no,” they said.

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Posted: Apr 5 2019 1:54 pm
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