Pink Shirt Day took on a focus of kindness this year at schools across the region.
On Wednesday, Feb. 24 students were encouraged to wear pink to encourage anti-bullying. Schools also held assemblies to address prevention and intervention strategies.
At Pineridge Elementary School, students wrote and acted out a play and then watched a movie about helpful and hurtful bystanders when bullying is taking place. “A hurtful bystander is someone who sits by and doesn’t do anything to step in and intervene,” said the principal Christine Franes. “By just stepping in and saying stop, or going to get an adult, kids can stop bullying within eight to 10 seconds.”
A slightly different angle was taken up by École Roosevelt Park Community School staff and students where they held a week-long campaign on random acts of kindness. “Students and teachers had to nominate someone who had done something kind just for the sake of it,” said the principal Andree Michaud adding that certificates were given to nominated students.
There is also a bulletin board at the entrance of the school where little pink paper T-shirt cutouts have messages of kindness written on them. “We thought of doing it instead of wearing the T-shirt and that doing the campaign up to the day would be more significant,” Michaud said.
A competition was held by the student council at Charles Hays Secondary School for who could wear the most pink. It was an all day event with an assembly on anti-bullying and the message “Kindness is one size fits all” written on some of the pink T-shirts people were wearing.
Principal Sandra Pond said the student council also wrote out positive messages and stuck them on every locker in the school.