A former district education council chair is reeling as New Brunswick reviews its policy on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
Policy 713 is meant to ensure there is a supportive environment for students, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.
It sets minimum requirements for school districts and schools to “create a safe, welcoming, inclusive, and affirming school environment for all students, families, and allies who identify or are perceived as LGBTQI2S+.”
Rob Fowler spent a number of years as chair of the Anglophone South School District Education Council, which serves schools from Sussex to St. Stephen.
Fowler said he feels the education minister is abandoning vulnerable students and staff by launching a review of this policy.
“We need to back off of that. It’s a frigging good policy that took 10 to 12 years to produce and has been vetted many times,” Fowler said in an interview.
Education Minister Bill Hogan said they decided to review the policy after receiving “hundreds” of complaints surrounding it.
Fowler, however, said he finds it hard to believe the government has received so many complaints around a policy that was only enacted in 2020.
“There’s something within the Conservative Party that they don’t believe that the [2SLGBTQIA+] community needs their own separate policy and I think they’re looking for ways to water it down,” he said. “It’s a frigging shame.”
The former district education council chair said he worries about what kind of message this policy review will send to students and staff who are part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
“Kids who might have felt somewhat safe in the school environment because we’re doing our best to do things for them to make sure that we do have a safe, positive, inclusive learning environment, that feeling is going to be lost. They’re going to feel like they don’t belong, that it’s open season to pick on them and bully them,” said Fowler.
“The rates of self-harm and suicide and bullying in that community are unreal. I think for the minister to abandon those kids to appease a few people who are transphobic and homophobic shows a complete lack of leadership on his part.”
Meanwhile, a weekend rally at the provincial legislature in Fredericton opposing the review of Policy 713 drew hundreds of New Brunswickers.
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