Students from schools across the province participated in a walkout Thursday to protest education cuts announced by the provincial government.
Hundreds of students at Listowel District Secondary School took part.
Eilish Brennan was one of the organizers and said the changes are unfair and harmful to students, particularly the announced mandatory online courses.
"We are the future of Ontario and we say no," said Brennan. "We are protesting these changes. They are not going to benefit your future doctors, lawyers, teachers or anyone, they are making things so much harder."
Brennan also said the cuts will be harmful to teachers as well with bigger class sizes to deal with, which could also lead to job losses and a reduction in one-on-one interactions with kids who need them.
Some of the walkouts were smaller than others.
CKNX News Reporter Adam Bell was in Palmerston as about 40 students participated in the walkout at Norwell District Secondary School.
The group of about 40 students had several signs and protested near the main entrance. Norwell protest organizer Lindsay Lacroix showed great leadership skills in keeping the students together, reiterating "this is a peaceful protest" through a large red megaphone, telling all involved to be respectful of everyone's opinion they encounter during the protest.
Several passing motorists honked in support.
There was a small counter-protest that showed support for Premier Doug Ford.
About 100 students in Hanover left class, marched through town while chanting and carrying signs.
"That's why we're out here today to publicly show that there's strong opposition to these changes and we're going to speak up and we're going to speak up loudly," said Liam Kelly, the student senator representing students at the Bluewater District School Board.
Kelly said it's estimated as many as seven full-time equivalent teachers will be affected at JDSS. It's expected the jobs will be lost through attrition, but Kelly said that means some programs will suffer when a teacher is not replaced.
"When a shop teacher leaves or a special art teacher leaves or retires that teacher wouldn't be replaced under the proposed changes so that's significantly going to affect our future and our elective courses are really going to take a hit with these changes," said Kelly.
There were also walkouts and other schools across the region including F.E. Madill in Wingham and at other schools across Huron, Perth, Bruce, Grey and Wellington.
The walkouts were planned in late March with the focus on how recently announced cuts would affect students and the system as a whole.
-With files from Ryan Drury, Adam Bell and Kirk Scott
The LDSS students are on their way to downtown Listowel as part of the province wide mass walkouts to protest education cuts. Over 600 schools are said to be participating. @cknxnews pic.twitter.com/dfzDVBJxTM
— Ryan Drury (@CKNX_Drury) April 4, 2019
Students protesting at Norwell District Secondary School in Palmerston (Photo by Adam Bell)
And there was some competition.