Sask. students to protest for teachers, against loss of lunch break

Students from Tisdale Middle & Secondary School in Tisdale, Sask., and Sheldon Williams Collegiate in Regina are planning to walk out of school Friday. Some say they are protesting to show support for teachers and others say they are speaking up because their lunch break has been taken away.

Austin Smith, a Grade 11 student in Tisdale, said his school hasbeen going straight through the day without a lunch break since the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation (STF) withdrew noon-hour supervision.

"It is really mentally draining not having that break. I mean it's pretty crucial to stay focused during the second half of the day. It's a little time to recharge, it gets to be a little too much those five hours right in a row," Smith said.

Smith and his classmates plan to protest from 9 a.m. until 2:25 p.m. CST.

STF and the provincial government have been at a bargaining impasse on a new teachers' contract for months.

This week, teachers provincewide started work-to-rule job action, meaning they're not volunteering their time for lunchtime or recess supervision, or to facilitate any extracurricular activities.

"We're not saying we are against the teachers at all, that's not what we're saying. But we believe that we shouldn't be used as a negotiation tool. We shouldn't be getting our lunch hours and our extracurricular sports taken away," Smithsaid.

Cassandra Teichroeb has a child inGrade 10 atTisdale Middle & Secondary School.She said that, given the job action, she agrees with the school skipping lunch hour altogether because it saves her and other parents from having to makearrangements to pick up their child from school and drop them back an hour later.

"Our school has just done early dismissals and so everybody, including the teachers, works right through the day, through the lunch hour, and they get out an hour early," she said.

She said she hopes that both parties can get back to the table and figure out a way to settle contract negotiations so that kids can have normal lives again.

"Kids don't always adapt as well as other people do sometimes. So I've noticed this is really taking a toll on the kids more than anything," she said.

CBCasked the STF for comment on Tisdale's lunch hour cancellation, but has not received a response.

Kate Hultgren, a Grade 12 student at Sheldon Williams in Regina, said she and her friends just want to support their teachers.

"We here at Sheldon think that our teachers are doing an amazing job of advocating for us and advocating for education. The purpose of the strike is to support them in all of their advocating for Saskatchewan education," Hultgren said.

Hultgrensaid she and her friends will protest at the Legislative building in Regina from 11 a.m. until noon CSTand then walk up Albert Street across the bridge.