Lawyers defending the province’s repeal of the 2015 sex-ed curriculum told a court on Thursday that teachers can still use it as a resource while abiding by the interim curriculum. “There’s a lot of latitude because of the way the expectations are written,” Zachary Green told a panel of three judges in Divisional Court. “Teachers can use the 2015 document as a resource to meet the expectations in the 2018 document.” He said they can use their professional judgment in selecting from a variety of resources and background material, including documents such as “How to Become a Super Rad Gender Warrior Classroom teacher.”The judges pressed him on whether teachers would be sanctioned for using the modernized 2015 curriculum. Green said they would not, “provided it’s a reasonable exercise.”“It’s not a blank cheque,” he said. “I can’t stand here and say teachers can say whatever they want. That goes too far.” Judges also asked if teachers are free to talk about issues contained in the 2015 documents, such as consent, transgender and homophobia, to which Green replied, “Yes.”It was the second of a two-day hearing that’s the result of separate legal challenges made by Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). ETFO says the Progressive Conservative government’s directive to scrap the 2015 Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum created a chilling effect amongst educators. That violates the rights of educators and students, because it limits their ability to teach material that keeps children safe, says ETFO.Meanwhile, the CCLA argues the interim curriculum — a 2010 document that contains sex-ed material from 1998 — has erased references to sexual orientation, gender identity and same-sex relations. That, says the CCLA, violates the constitutional right to equality ...
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