A school in the Basses-Laurentides which, like a school in Quebec, had made the decision to celebrate Parents’ Day rather than Mothers’ and Fathers’ Days is doing an about-face after the controversy raised by this change. However, teachers testify that if they change their way of doing things, it is sometimes simply to protect students.
On Wednesday, an email sent by a school from the Center de services scolaire de la Rivière-du-Nord (CSSRDN) to inform that Parents’ Day was going to replace Mother’s and Father’s Day this year circulated widely. It was notably relayed on Twitter by the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime.
A few hours later, the service center confirmed to The Press that the management of this school “will put the two parties back on its calendar”.
The spokesperson for this service center, Nadyne Brochu, explains that it was the decision of a single school and that the “reaction of the parents leads to this retraction”.
On Tuesday, it was a Quebec school that was put under the magnifying glass on social networks. Second-year teachers had judged that “considering the heterogeneity of the families” of their students, it was better to celebrate parents’ day rather than those of Mothers and Fathers.
The Center de services scolaire de la Capitale clarified that “some students in their classes do not have a mother or father or are in foster care” and that this was what motivated the teachers to make such a decision. .
This was, it was added, a “benevolent intention”.
This is often the case, says the president of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), who regrets that this affair makes so much noise.
“Let’s take an example: one year when we know that in the class, a child is grieving for one of his parents, we will govern differently than another year. We will do the same if we have a child with a serious illness in the class, we will have a sensitivity that we will have less the following year, ”illustrates Mélanie Hubert.
Anyway, she adds, the professional autonomy of the teachers allows them not to use this theme “which is not on the program at all”.
On Facebook groups of teachers, the subject divides, but several teachers report situations that call for delicacy.
“I have a pupil whose father committed suicide last month… Is it necessary to turn the iron in the wound by imposing on him a card writing or a craft […] ? asks a teacher.
Others simply say that if they do not mark these holidays, it is because at the end of the year, the school calendar is loaded. A teacher writes that she “sometimes lost two or three periods of teaching” to do crafts.
Education Minister Bernard Drainville reacted to the controversy on Twitter on Tuesday evening.
“There was never any question of removing mothers or fathers from our schools. And there will never be any question of that either,” he wrote.