Students at St. Charles College in Sudbury joined peers across the province Friday and walked out of their classes at 1 p.m. Toronto student Indygo Arscott, 16, organized the protest in response to the Ontario government's plan to revert elementary school sex education curriculum back to the 1998 version.
An open document shared online where students could add their walkouts to a list had 126 schools participating, the majority of them in the Greater Toronto Area.
"They basically just kept asking us if we actually knew why we were walking out," said Keegan Winters, a Grade 12 student at St. Charles, of the school staff who came outside to speak with the group. "I think they're assuming that we don't know what we're doing and we're just walking out to skip class."
More than 20 students left the school around 1 p.m. and a small group of 15 stayed together to demonstrate off the property.
"Cutting sex ed and cutting school funding isn't OK with us, and it's not OK with a lot of other students that are walking out," said Audrey Dumais, who is in Grade 11.
"If teachers can do it and they can walk out of classes because they don't believe with what the government is doing to them, we can do the same."
Specifically, some students were concerned about failing to teach elementary school students about consent. Jade Savoie expressed concerns about what her sibling may not be learning.
"That's just so scary because I have a little sister and if they don't teach her that, then I don't want something bad to happen to her just because she didn't learn how to say no," Savoie said. "We should teach kids about consent and about everything they're changing."
A school staff member came outside to speak with the protesting students. When asked, Sudbury.com was told that no staff members were willing to comment.
