(May 10, 2023) On Friday, a school just outside Winnipeg told parents that students were not going to observe Mother’s Day – and that Father’s Day was next on their list. Marty Gold reports on how the message in the memo was reversed after a weekend of “our parent community” responding ‘Not So Fast’.
A listener with a child enrolled at Dr. F.W.L. Hamilton School on Henderson Highway was shocked at what transpired, starting with the Friday May 5th ‘E-Memo’ released by the principal after the school day. In other words, right as the first nice weekend of the spring started.
Parents were patronizingly thanked “for supporting our transition to a more inclusive practice” that they were just hearing about for the first time. Instead, they were outraged at the new school policy. Marty reads out loud what parents were told: annual family acknowledgements of parents (and in many cases, grandparents too) were dismissed as “isolated observances of specific traditions.”
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Hear the peculiar language used to describe why students weren’t going to be making Mother’s Day cards. The policy also would wipe out Father’s Day, in favour of letting “students (will) choose someone to acknowledge and make something for” for those occasions.
But before morning recess on Monday May 8th, another E-Memo was sent out, citing that “some feedback from Friday’s e-memo” was resulting in a different cancelation – the new policy.
“… we will continue to acknowledge Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as a school.”
We bring details of the May 8 mea culpa, and more – because Marty contacted the school principal with a few questions.
He noted: “The observance of both days showing appreciation to parents is a standard practice in a vast majority of Jewish homes in Manitoba and Canada, in accordance with our religious tradition to “honour thy father and thy mother.”
We got a prompt reply, confirming
1 – that the memos you hear are accurate,
2 – the original decision was ” a school-based one” and not influenced by the River East – Transcona School Division, and
3 – why he un-canceled the May and June commemorations. However…
An earlier report by True North about the memo explained “the school would instead encourage non-gender-specific observations of “all those who support our student’s (sic)” – but according to the principal at Dr. Hamilton, the outlet identified the wrong school.
He wanted to clarify this involves his school in East St. Paul, and not Kildonan East in Winnipeg as True North reported.
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In the recap, there’s a lot of questions:
– Why try to convince mothers and fathers that the new policy was “a beautiful transition to showing gratitude authentically and organically”?
– Did the memo infer the “isolated observances” being canceled weren’t ?? Some interested commenters online thought it did- and backfired.
– Will parents take their questions to the RETSD trustees, to find out whose fingerprints were on the “inclusive” idea to undermine families and exclude their opinions before kids were told Mother’s Day was out?
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