From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The rural Saskatchewan school district’s director of education said ‘it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities’ to allow biological boys to use the same locker room as girls who feel uncomfortable about the situation.

Despite an outcry from concerned parents, a Canadian school board told them it supports allowing gender-confused boys access to girls’ change rooms.

Last week, LifeSiteNews reported about Balgonie Elementary School in rural Saskatchewan where a female seventh grader told her parents she was not comfortable sharing changing rooms for gym class with gender-confused biological males.

Despite the outcry, the Prairie Valley School Division (PVSD) in a recent email sent to parents claimed that the school division’s inclusivity policy trumps the rights of girls from being victimized by gender-confused boys.

“One important part of creating these safe and welcoming spaces is ensuring our schools operate in a way that respects the human rights, dignity and privacy expectations of all students and their families,” PVSD director of education Gord Husband wrote in an email to parents.

Husband said the school division’s policies and procedures are “carefully aligned with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.”

“We operate according to these documents not only because it is our legal obligation, but also because it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities,” he added.

Husband’s email did not mention the issue at Balgonie Elementary directly but instead claimed it was a “human rights” issue and asked all parents to support “all students.”

The father of the girl, who remains anonymous, said that after his daughter raised the issue of the biological males using the girls’ locker room, saying she “felt uncomfortable,” she was told, “she can change in a different room by herself.”

The issue drew the attention of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. He said that his first “order of business” should he be re-elected to lead the province will be to ban gender-confused boys from accessing girls’ change rooms in public schools.

As reported by the Western Standard, the gender-confused boys using the girls’ change rooms are in fact those of Saskatchewan NDP MLA Jared Clarke.

One of the concerned parents noted that learning this fact is “insane.”

“Wow, that’s insane, Sask NDP candidate from the NDP party, but not surprised that someone from that party would do that to a child. The NDP is really pushing that agenda and it’s so disturbing,” said the parent, as reported by the Western Standard.

Saskatchewan’s provincial election will be held October 28.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, LGBT indoctrination targeting kids has been on the rise in Canada and worldwide, leading to Canadians fighting back in protest.

Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported that a leading female gender ideology activist, who also worked as a school counselor, has been charged with grievous sexual offenses involving a minor.

Provinces such as Alberta, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan have in recent months proposed legislation that would strengthen parental rights.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Michael Zwaagstra

“Resistance to colonialism is not terrorism.”

This quote was shown to more than 5000 Winnipeg School Division (WSD) staff last week at a professional development session that Dr. Chris Emdin from Teachers College, Columbia University  delivered. Not surprisingly, many teachers found the quote offensive, with more than a dozen walking out.

The teachers who walked out did the right thing. Whatever one’s political views might be, there is no context where intentionally murdering innocent civilians, which is an act of terrorism, is acceptable.

Even more offensive was the fact that this presentation took place only two days after the first anniversary of Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered that day, with many others wounded or taken hostage.

Considering how often Hamas apologists justify their antisemitism by reframing it as “resistance” to colonialism, it’s not surprising that a quote minimizing the evils of terrorism wouldn’t go over well with many teachers, particularly Jewish educators.

WSD Superintendent Matt Henderson was quick to engage in damage control. Henderson apologized for the quote in a letter to staff and explained that “the speaker’s view does not reflect the views of the WSD in this context.”

However, Henderson shouldn’t be let off the hook so easily. No competent superintendent would organize a division-wide professional development event without carefully vetting a keynote speaker, reviewing the PowerPoint slides, and knowing exactly what message that speaker would deliver to his staff.

The fundamental issue here is how this incident exposes the divide between two different visions of public education. On one side we have the traditional view of education, which emphasizes the importance of knowledge acquisition and skill development in school. On the other side is the progressive view, where teachers engage in social justice activism and seek to liberate students from colonialism and oppression.

This is not a new debate. In her 2000 book, Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform, education historian Diane Ravitch chronicled the long struggle between traditionalists and progressives for control of Teachers College, the most influential teacher training institution in North America.

In the end, the progressives won the power struggle and took effective control of Teachers College, where Emdin currently teaches.

In other words, by inviting a well-known political activist to be the keynote speaker at this WSD event, Superintendent Henderson signaled his desire to take WSD schools in a more progressive direction, where teachers focus more on activism than on traditional academics. This won’t surprise anyone who has read any of Henderson’s many articles over the last decade or so. His left-wing political views are hardly a secret.

Not surprisingly, many parents are uncomfortable with this approach. Most parents send their children to school because they want them to learn basic facts and master essential skills—not to be indoctrinated into an ideology that conflicts with what they are taught at home.

A far better approach would be for all schools to focus on the fundamentals of teaching and learning. Help students become knowledgeable and skillful and leave political activism out of the classroom.

If teachers want to be political, they should do it on their own time. A school division’s focus should be on academics, not on political activism.

Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.