Madeline Shulver said safe space stickers made her feel supported when she was a student at Sacred Heart Catholic High School in Newmarket.
As a member of the 2SLGTBQIA+ community, she said that seeing those stickers and other symbols with Pride flags helped her make her way through the Catholic school system.
So, when she and others in the community saw a proposed policy that could ban the display of those flags in York Catholic District School Board schools, Shulver said she wanted to come out and protest.
“Faith-based discrimination is still bad and it helped me (to) know which teachers would support me and which teachers would stop bullying and which teachers would listen to me,” she said. “To have that taken away from students would be a horrible thing.”
York Catholic District School Board trustees backed off the motion that would bar almost all flags from being displayed anywhere on school premises. Raised by trustee Frank Alexander, last night the board of trustees opted to defer the motion to a policy review committee.
The motion seeks to amend the board’s flag policy to remove reference to other flags, beyond the provincial, federal, municipal, papal and school flags typically flown. Alexander proposed that no other flags be displayed anywhere on school premises, justifying it with a comment that the board has “been fraught with disunity over the flying of flags.”
This comes after the board faced widespread condemnation for refusing to fly a Pride flag during Pride Month last year. But as the motion was deferred, Alexander said it “requires some tweaking.”
The motion would mean a loss of expression if passed as is, Shulver said.
“Our school has a great hall with flags from all over the world, just hanging from the ceiling. Those would all have to be taken down, and that was one of them. It's one of the most beautiful parts of our school just walking down and seeing all the international diversity,” she said. “It feels like limiting freedom of speech. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
With the motion going to a policy review committee, Shulver said she hopes it just does not advance at all.
“I’m glad it didn’t pass. That’s better than I hoped, actually,” Shulver said.
The local Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association expressed concern about the policy. Local president Michael Totten said the decision tonight was “the right outcome.”
“Tonight, there’s a reality. Follow your policy, do the appropriate consultation, see where we get on this,” Totten said. “Once it goes to policy review, you’ll have appropriate consultation.”
Alexander made a second motion that did get discussion and approval: to create stickers bearing a cross and “We are one in Christ” to be used through the school board.
That motion also garnered some concern in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in combination with the flag motion. Last year, some parents protested the use of safe space stickers. With that context, PFlag York Region expressed concern that the motion was a response to that discourse.
However, Alexander modified the sticker motion during the meeting, suggesting the words, “We are diverse. We are one in Christ.”
“That’s a very good change,” board chair Elizabeth Crowe said.
Trustees also left it to communications staff to come up with a design, potentially with student input or even a design contest.
Totten said he takes no issue with the sticker concept.
“We are certainly a diverse group. We are certainly one in Christ,” he said. “That motion is probably an appropriate one.”
More than 20 people attended the meeting in person, many wearing Pride colours.
“It’s always great to see,” Totten said, adding that the flag motion was “underhanded.”
“At the end of the day, the public is aware, so seeing the turnout was fabulous.”
The board’s policy review committee will next meet Feb. 7 at 6:30 p.m. Those meetings are publicly viewable, either in person at the board office or livestreamed on the board’s YouTube channel.
