Ontario Teams in Jeopardy for 2012/2013?

[Racer26]

Many Ontario Elementary and High schools have been having student walkouts in protest of the teachers taking away their extra-curriculars.

Effective? I'm not sure, but the media are sure having a field day with it all. The teachers and Queen's Park can't stay at odds forever if the students are going to keep walking out.

[Duncan Macdonald]

Lets attempt to squeeze something productive out of this thread.

Questions I was hoping to have answered when opening this thread:

What have other teams done in seasons with labour disputes/ years with unknown level of teacher involvement?
What were the operational issues you came across in trying to run a team separate from a school? (ignoring fundraising)


Questions I have for Ontario teams/teachers:

What levels of involvement have you been able to been led to expect from your teachers?
I expect the answers to vary on this one. Currently we have been able to borrow and steal robots from the school as needed during school hours for community demonstrations, etc. Is this the case at other school as well?

Speculative answers not welcome.


Information on how the mentors (sans teachers) of 2809 are proceeding in case anyone finds it useful. We are fortunate in that we are structured as both and a school club and a Queen’s Engineering Society club. We have transferred money from the school club to the EngSoc one as a precaution and will be running weekly training sessions out of a university building starting next week. The university people we have talked to have indicated we should not need additional paperwork for liabilities and are covered by the university. We will be enforcing a stricter code of conduct for the students since we are not at the school are now guests at the university. We have made no travel plans yet, electing to observe the labour situation and will be depending on parent involvement if the situation is unchanged.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

What have other teams done in seasons with labour disputes/ years with unknown level of teacher involvement?

We have not had a problem with labor disputes or unknown level of teacher involvement. We were asked to remove our materials and equipment so that the space could be re-purposed and was left homeless in spring of 2011.

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

What were the operational issues you came across in trying to run a team separate from a school? (ignoring fundraising)

Since spring 2011 we now work in a former retail store inside a local mall. In running the program outside of the school we have had to carry our own liability insurance and have had to add workshops to train the students on emergency situations that could occur outside of the school as well as how to be safe when arriving and leaving the work sessions. We still remain connected to our school system by having a teacher and being a club with a student activties account.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Many Ontario Elementary and High schools have been having student walkouts in protest of the teachers taking away their extra-curriculars.

Effective? I'm not sure, but the media are sure having a field day with it all. The teachers and Queen's Park can't stay at odds forever if the students are going to keep walking out.

While ordinarily I'd say students walking out is a bad idea—mainly because it wouldn't ordinarily end well for the students—the recent Quebec student strike has primed the media and the populace with the rather extraordinary concept that students are empowered to take matters into their own hands and be heard loudly.

So I think it will be reasonably effective. Dalton McGuinty saw what happened to Jean Charest and doesn't want to be next.<sup>1

1</sup> McGuinty is the premier of Ontario, leading a minority government; Charest is the former premier of Quebec, who lost his own seat in the legislature, and whose party lost the recent election, in large part as a result of discontent with his handling of the Quebec student strike.

[akoscielski3]

Article about the Windsor Walk out.

The walk out went pretty well in my opinion. My Chemistry teacher (the class I was in at 10:30 when the walk out started) stopped class of r aminute, opened the door, and said that we could take a 1 minute brake if we wanted. However we were taking down an important note o everyone just stayed till we were done our note. Many people were supportive of the students, the Vice principle and Principle were outside keeping an eye on us, rather than kicking us off the property or sending us to class.

We'll see October 11th if there will be Extra Curricular Activities or not.