Parents attending a council meeting at a Toronto District School Board (TDSB) middle school last week were told that staff would be given paid time off over three days to learn how to teach using anti-racist resources and picture books.
The minutes for the D.A. Morrison Middle School council were obtained by True North before being posted online.
After the requisite land acknowledgement message, a teacher informed members of the council that fellow teachers would take the “release time” to improve their use of anti-racism material.
“The focus (is) for teachers to consciously choose and use equitable, culturally relevant and responsive resources in our classrooms,” the meeting’s minutes indicate.
TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird said during the time out of the class, the teachers watched a professional learning workshop that would help them to pick the inclusive picture books.
The minutes also show that many of the school’s staff had already been given additional dollars to buy books that better focus on “BIPOC” realities (Black, Indigenous and Peoples of Colour).
“The goal is to make classroom libraries more equity-focussed and/or culturally relevant to the realities of students,” the minutes say.
The presenting teacher also indicated that representatives in each class were leading “equity mantras” that focus on not putting down one other or making jokes based on race, gender and sexual orientation.
The same teacher also reported that in honour of African Heritage Month, there had been ongoing virtual African drumming and “Reggaecise” with Kevin Carrington for two weeks.
According to his website, Carrington is “The Voice” for any occasion, who has done announcing on CBC and CityNews, among other platforms.
D.A. Morrison principal Marc Mullan indicated that Carrington had been retained by the TDSB for Black History Month.
There was also a discussion about acquiring resources from the “Get Real Movement” – the same group of mostly LGBT and trans-activists that recently did gender inclusivity workshops for Forest Hill Public School Grade 4-8 students.
Parents heard that some D.A. Morrison staff were using virtual resources from the Aga Khan Educational Foundation of Canada – described as a free online platform for “development practitioners,” including educators – working to “create a better world.”
School councils were originally supposed to allow parents to provide input into all manner of school business, but other than a question on “Reggaecise,” not one concern was addressed about the school’s prioritizing virtue-signalling activities over teaching the basics needed to succeed in high school and beyond.
There was certainly no criticism of the three-day release time for teachers to study anti-racist picture books. I suspect D.A. Morrison is just another example of the crazy woke activities occurring in schools across the board.
The TDSB’s education director, Colleen Russell-Rawlins, seems to have made anti-black racism her priority – with some gender inclusivity thrown in for good measure – just as she did at the Peel District School Board.
It doesn’t take a great leap of faith to surmise that parents who attended that meeting last week were afraid to speak up about the nonsense they heard out of fears they’d be branded racist, Islamophobic, transphobic and homophobic.
And there’s no doubt in my mind that some of these educators pushing their woke mantras would target the kids of parents who criticize such activities – even as they did in Waterloo last month.
It’s a sad statement, but it’s a reality of the times.
