Students walk out at Riverside Secondary to protest public school board’s elimination of IB program

Around 200 students walked out of class at Riverside Secondary School to protest a recent decision by Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) trustees to cut a specialized diploma program offering an enriched learning stream.

On Nov. 5, GECDSB trustees voted to make several cuts to bring down a nearly $6.5 million deficit. Among the programs cut was the International Baccalaureate (IB) program.

The IB program is a globally recognized education system that challenges students with a rigorous curriculum emphasizing critical thinking, research and intercultural understanding.

Students who complete the program can earn an IB diploma, highly regarded by universities worldwide, in addition to their high school diploma.

The only two GECDSB high schools offering IB programs are Riverside Secondary School and Leamington District Secondary School.

"I was in tears that night when they told me they would cancel it, because before joining IB, I felt no use to going to school," said Tasbeeh Alshami, a Grade 9 student at Riverside Secondary School, during Thursday morning’s walkout.

"But after being here, I'm the happiest. We're all the happiest when we're academically challenged."

Since only one GECDSB high school in Windsor offers an IB program, many Grade 8 students in the city chose Riverside Secondary over a closer high school to pursue the enriched learning stream.

Caitlin McCourt, also in Grade 9 at Riverside, said cutting the IB program means she would have to leave her friends, teachers and the public school board behind if she wants to continue IB learning.

That's because there's only one other high school in Windsor offering IB learning — but that falls under the Windsor-Essex District Catholic School Board.

"I would have to move to Assumption High School," said McCourt, who lives in LaSalle.

"It's a 20-minute car ride to Riverside and then an hour-long school bus trip to Riverside Secondary."

Fellow Grade 9 student Mgiizi Wright, who believes the elimination of the IB program demonstrates school board trustees’ failure to put “kids before cuts,” said he would find moving to the Catholic school board to be difficult as an Indigenous student.

He pointed to the role of Catholicism in the residential school system and the erasing of “my culture and language.”

“This is why I chose to stay in the Greater Essex County District School Board. But if they decide to cut the IB program, I'll be going to the Catholic school board,” said Wright.

The GECDSB provided bus transportation to its IB students. Eliminating the program means students in Windsor who want to pursue IB learning would have to transfer to Assumption or attend the high school closer to where live.

Switching schools midway through the year, however, is easier said than done.

According to the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, transferring to Assumption High School during the academic year is not an option “due to staffing, space, and programming issues.”

"At this point, we are simply gathering information from those parents in order to make a determination about how many students we may be able to accommodate next September," said WECDSB spokesperson Stephen Fields.

Numbers provided by the WECDSB show there are 914 students currently enrolled at Assumption. Of that, 364, or about 40 per cent, are in the IB program.

As for the public board, officials have said Grade 11 and 12 students will be able to complete the IB program.

Grade 9 and 10 students at the GECDSB, however, will not have the same opportunity and will have their IB programming discontinued.

"These kids have worked hard for this program. We need to show their success matters and not pull it out from under them, forcing them back to feeder schools without this exceptional program," said parent Nicole Yazbeck.

"It's just not fair to the kids. They were promised a future with an IB diploma and now it's being taken from them."

Parents added getting into an IB program is no easy feat.

Students wanting to enrol in IB programming need to maintain strong grades, demonstrate language proficiency and show a genuine interest in global education to meet eligibility requirements.

"My own eldest daughter is now off at Dartmouth College in the United States," said Sean Duranovich, whose daughter graduated from the IB program at Riverside Secondary School.

"It's a very difficult program to get into. There's no doubt she would not be in that program at an Ivy League school if she did not go through this.

The IB program will be eliminated at the GECDSB starting in the 2025-26 school year.