You may soon be hearing about Occupy Smithers Secondary.
Students at Smithers’ high school (SSS) are talking about possible walkouts to protest the loss of their 15 minute breaks at school.
Three SSS students approached The Interior News to provide their side of the story, saying the loss of breaks will affect their academics, in part because their lunch breaks, which will remain, are when a lot of extracurricular activities happen for them. Between straight classes and extracurriculars, they basically get no break in the day, they said.
“I’m a choir student, that’s going to really suck for me if they take away that break,” said grade 12 student Ashley Halvorson, who said she meets for choir over the lunch break.
Recess breaks were cancelled as of Nov. 28, to give relief to administrators who were covering supervision duties while teachers are engaged in job action.
“It’s really starting to stress me out how they’re changing the school on our last year,” said Halvorson.
She came to The Interior News with Shelby Whalen and another student who preferred not to be named.
Whalen said a petition has been going around the school but it’s hard to get the younger students to pay attention to what is happening.
Part of the problem in all this, she said, is that optional grade 12 exams have been taken away, which affects their eligibility for provincial grants of up to $2,000.
Halvorson said that starting on Nov. 28, the students were planning staged walkouts of the school for 15 minutes at a time each day, taking their usual daily break.
Due to our press deadlines it was unknown if the students had followed through with that plan.