Revolutionary Student Movement hits the streets downtown Jan. 24

A student organization that describes itself as "revolutionary, combative, militant and anti-capitalist" is joining the opposition to the Rainbow District School Board's planned school closures.

The Revolutionary Student Movement is holding a rally and march against the closures on Jan. 24. The event gets underway at the corner of Elm and Durham streets at 3 p.m. The event organizers plan to march on the Rainbow board's downtown administrative office.

Trustees with the board will make a final decision on school closures Feb. 7.

A press release from Revolutionary Student Movement said if the school closures go ahead, it will mean “overcrowding and understaffing all across the board. Massive drop in the quality of education. Lumping of elementary, middle and high school students into the same building.

“Absurdly long commutes to and from school, upwards of several hours each way in many cases. Slashing of French Immersion, Ojibwe classes and extracurricular programs.”

The group describes itself as the Canada-wide, revolutionary, combative, militant, and anti-capitalist student movement.

"We align our struggles with those of the broader working class. We are a movement guided by communist principles that serves the people in their fight for emancipation from the capitalist system," says the group's mission statement.

"We organize proletarian students in the interest of the revolutionary working class movement. We are revolutionary, not reformist. We maintain our independence from the bourgeois state, and we support the peoples’ struggles against capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism in Canada and internationally."

Learn more about the march on the group's Facebook page.

*An earlier headline on this story stated the RSM was joining the opposition, but the group wanted to clarify that they have been an active and vocal opponent for some months, publishing a statement, rallying and attending meetings.