Winnipeg high school reinstalls washroom door after removal sparks backlash amid indoor vaping – Winnipeg | 24CA News
A Winnipeg highschool’s current dealing with of indoor vaping is elevating considerations over how directors can and may curb vaping in youth.
St. James Collegiate navigated backlash over a door it eliminated on one of many ladies’ bogs. Parents and college students voiced privateness considerations after discovering the door was gone on Thursday.
It was meant to be a brief resolution, however after contemplating each adverse and constructive suggestions, St. James-Assiniboia School Division advised Global News that the door has since been put again.
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“The recent growth of vaping on school property and in enclosed public spaces continues to violate the division’s smoke-free policy, a city bylaw and provincial legislation,” a spokesperson for the division mentioned in an emailed assertion Friday.
“It can also be a safety concern and nuisance to other students using the facilities for their intended purpose.”
Vaping inside colleges isn’t new, Seven Oaks School Division superintendent Brian O’Leary mentioned Friday, but it surely’s a rising drawback they’re additionally as soon as once more having to navigate popping out of the pandemic.
“Things that weren’t an issue with kids working remotely, or high school kids for a significant period of time were coming every second day, are now a little more prominent,” O’Leary mentioned.
“We’re having a fairly good winter, so it hasn’t been an acute problem, but we do get kids sometimes congregating in a washroom.”
Indoor vaping is regarding past simply adverse well being results, he mentioned. Vaping can result in nicotine dependancy together with altering mind growth in teenagers, Health Canada says.
“Usually, if schools are acting on that, they’re acting in the interests of kids who’ve come forward and said, ‘I feel uncomfortable going in there with, you know, 10 kids gathered vaping,” O’Leary mentioned.
Solutions usually deal with educating and offering helps to college students together with making vaping tougher to do, earlier than resorting to harsher penalties, he mentioned.
“We’d have conversations with parents and work together with parents. There may be some taken-away privileges, even suspending a student from attending school to make a point.”
Meanwhile, St. James-Assiniboia School Division will proceed educating college students on the hazards of vaping, whereas ensuring the washrooms can be found to everybody, the spokesperson mentioned.
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The division’s board of trustees additionally supplied Global News with a press release.
“It is always a challenge to balance the concerns and perspectives of different parties,” board chair Cheryl Smukowich mentioned.
“We understand that substance use is a complicated issue. For that reason, we want to remind families that the division does have a variety of supports and services available for those wishing to quit smoking or vaping, and we encourage students to talk to their school guidance counsellors about the help that is available for this and other concerns.”
“In spite of these supports, we understand and respect that some students may continue smoking or vaping. We ask that they do so outside of school property, in alignment with Division policy, and out of respect for the students and staff that also need to make use of school facilities.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
