Manitoba students call on government for better COVID safety with walkouts
Posted January 17, 2022 5:19 pm.
Last Updated January 18, 2022 11:42 am.
Students in Manitoba are walking out of class, protesting what they call COVID-19 safety concerns, on the first day returning to in-class learning.
Over the weekend a social media page called MB-Students-For-COVID-Safety gained thousands of followers. Students from schools across Manitoba supported the page, and staged walkouts of their own, to occur in solidarity, at exactly 11:30 a.m. Monday morning.
“I feel like we are not safe in schools currently, that there are too many kids, too large class sizes, and no options for students whose families might be immunocompromised,” said Cooper Vint, organizer of MB-Students-For-COVID-Safety.
Cooper Vint is a grade 10 student at Grant Park High School and one of the organizers behind MB-Students-For-COVID-Safety. Vint says as of Monday, 91 other schools in the province have joined the walkout.
Participants are demanding better options for remote learning, more PPE in schools, specifically N95 or KN95 masks for all students and staff, and better access to rapid antigen tests in schools.
“Our group is not about forcing anyone into remote learning or forcing anyone into anything. Our goal is purely to keep our loved ones and our communities safe,” added Vint.
Another organizer of MB-Students-For-COVID-Safety says she did not return to school on Monday over personal COVID safety concerns. However, she did join others on the walkout, lending her voice to the protest.
“Right now, it’s up to school divisions and provincial governments to make this push for change,” said Brie Villeneuve, organizer of MB-Students-For-COVID-Safety.
“This will not be the last of it if the provincial government doesn’t make change. We will continue to protest, and we will find other ways to make them hear our voice.”
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Meanwhile, at the Manitoba Legislature, hundreds of signs with the slogan “suppress the virus” were planted by a group called “Community Not Cuts” who say they are standing in solidarity with the students protesting.
“Communities Not Cuts is 100 per cent behind the students and their demands for action,” said Shawn Kettner with Community Not Cuts.
Safe September MB is a non-partisan group who have been advocating for improved COVID-19 safety in schools for over a year and a half, and fully supports the student walkout.
“We are right there with the students today! And we hope our minister of education will listen to them in the coming days,” said Luanne Karm with Safe September MB.
“The decision for all those students to go back to in-person learning is a directive from the province of Manitoba,” added Jamie Dumont, vice-chair of the Winnipeg School Division (WSD).
Dumont says the WSD wrote a letter to the province in December of last year, asking for more supports to make schools safer, including requests for N95/KN95 masks, access to rapid tests, and the ability to provide remote learning options when needed.
It’s a very similar list of requests, the students are now demanding by way of protest. Dumon says as of today they have not received any of those things.
“It’s not our decision to have all kids go back and not have those remote learning options available for them and so what we’re asking for is then give us these other layers of safety that we can put into our schools.”
However, not all students say they feel unsafe attending schools at this time.
“Personally, as long as I am safe and wearing my mask and everything I’m fine with working in school,” said Lexus MacKenzie, a student at Grant Park Highschool.
As for the student organizers of Monday’s walk out, they say if nothing changes soon, the government can expect more protests to come.
CityNews reached out to Cliff Cullen, the Manitoba Minister of Education for comment, he did not respond in time of this publication.
