VCHS Students Walk Out of Classes to Protest Expulsion
Michelle Pinon
News Advertiser
About 60 Vegreville Composite High School, (VCHS) students walked out of classes early Tuesday morning in protest of the recent expulsion of a fellow schoolmate who was the victim of a stabbing at the school on March 18.
One of the protesters was Grade 11 student Connor Webb, who is friends with the victim. “We wanted to show we didn’t support the decision of the school division and didn’t want it to go unheard. And we wanted to show support for the Weiss family.”
Webb, who witnessed the stabbing, said his friend Roan Weiss stepped in to protect a younger student who was being attacked in the parking lot of the school during lunch hour.
“Yesterday, (April 11) we were told he had been expelled.” He said the decision, “Kind of blindsided us all. No charges were pending, so we really weren’t expecting the decision.”
What he finds most concerning is that the student, he alleges planned and carried out the attack, may not face the same consequences. Webb said he doesn’t know if the perpetrator has been expelled or not from VCHS.
Webb said a lot of parents won’t allow their kids to attend the school if the other student isn’t expelled. He is hoping other parents will support him and other protesters by speaking out about the incident and resulting expulsion to the school principal and school division superintendent. “We want parents to get involved and voice their own concerns.”
According to Webb, his friend hasn’t been in school since the stabbing “because he was deemed a threat to the community.” To his knowledge, Weiss was only fined for fighting in public, and no other charges have been laid by police.
Webb said the expulsion will be on his school record and he won’t be able to graduate at VCHS, if at all because it would be up to another school to accept or decline his registration. VCHS is located in the Elk Island Public School Division.
Webb said the protest was thrown together in a matter of hours the night before through Snapchat, a multimedia instant messaging app.
