Most of the 85 students who were in Nice when a man drove a 19-ton truck into the crowd killing 84 people have returned to Nanaimo.
But not everyone is happy about the decision to bring them home.
“I think the worst part is that we didn’t have any consultation at all as a parent, and nor did our children,” said one parent, Kelli Etheridge.
Officials began making flight arrangements before talking to parents. They split up the group of students in order to bring them back as quickly as possible.
READ MORE: Nanaimo students coming home early from European trip after Nice attack
But parents say the school shouldn’t have done that. They had to learn their children were coming home through a press release.
“A lot of our kids thought like there would be a better environment for healing if they were with people who had been through that shared experience,” said Etheridge.
But the School District stands by its decision.
“The decision was clear, we needed to do everything we could to bring them back,” said School District 68 Superintendent, John Blaine.
But Alexandra Behie, one of the Nanaimo school students posted on Facebook she was having the “time of her life.”
READ MORE: Nanaimo school children safe in Nice following terror attack
“We thought that if the children were up to it, one of the ways you be defined is be cowed and not run home but to carry on with your life,” said Alexandra’s dad, Peter Behie.
He says it looked like the students were enjoying their time, despite everything.
A team of trauma counselors had been brought in to speak to the students.
Now a group of roughly 30 parents have come together to draft a letter that allows them the right to take legal action against the district.
But Superintendent Blaine says he will sleep well tonight knowing the students are safe.
With files from Kylie Stanton
Comments