Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park school — now the “epicentre” of the anti-sex-ed protest — was half-empty on the first day of classes as parents kept their children away in protest over the new health curriculum.

Instead, more than 100 kids gathered at the park adjacent to the school, sitting on tarps, divided by grade, as community volunteers took over teaching after they began their day by singing “O Canada.”

Meanwhile, inside Canada’s largest elementary school, Grade 1, 2, and 3 classes were running with about nine or 10 students each, and Grades 4 and 5 with 14 or 15.

Next door, the kindergarten-only Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy saw just 326 of the expected 510 students in attendance, even though there is no sex education in either year of kindergarten.

“This is unprecedented,” said Thorncliffe principal Jeff Crane, who’d expected 1,460 students to show up, but ended up with 781. In the morning, a line of parents formed outside the school, near Don Mills Rd. and Overlea Blvd., to submit letters explaining that they object to the “radical sex-ed curriculum” and that formal notice of home-schooling or a move to a private school is on the way.

Some parents say they’ll keep their kids out for a month to make a point, while others vow to remove their kids from the system entirely.

If enrolment doesn’t bounce back by the end of the month, Crane said he is looking at “significant cuts” to his 89-member teaching staff.

Opponents of the sex-ed curriculum have said parents were not properly consulted on the changes, and that the material is age-inappropriate or conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said she hopes parents who have concerns won’t do anything rash.

“I think it’s very unfortunate if parents decide to take their kids out of school altogether,” she told reporters at Queen’s Park. “I think that kids lose a lot in terms of the social environment that they would find themselves in the public school . . . but that is parents’ decision.”

Most boards are holding off on implementing some parts of the curriculum until spring, and Wynne noted that parents have the right to pull their children out of “particular classes” if there’s something they object to.

However, boards have said it is impossible for kids not to be exposed to talk about respecting all types of families — including same-sex parents — or gender identity because these topics can come up at any time and are woven throughout the curriculum.

With protests heating up, school boards across the GTA have been anticipating a large number of requests for children to be excused because of their faith.

While a mere handful of lessons per year actually deal with sexual health, requests for exemptions were expected to number in the hundreds in some neighbourhoods. Schools in Peel Region, for example, had expected to be impacted, but attendance on Tuesday was normal.

Crane said Thorncliffe has worked with parents in the past over concerns about sex-ed, including some who don’t want their children exposed to any discussion of puberty.

Last spring, when some parents kept their children home in a protest, his school was nearly empty. In the new curriculum, puberty is discussed in Grade 4 because children are going through physical changes earlier than they did in the past.

In previous years, “we’ve been able to deliver the curriculum to students in acceptable ways,” Crane added. The challenge now is how to deliver the curriculum “without highlighting a lifestyle” but reinforcing that people need to positively co-exist.

“It’s something we still need to discuss as a staff,” he said of how to handle talk of equity and inclusion, like sexual orientation or gender identity, adding: “It’s a balance between respecting the concerns of parents and delivering the curriculum.”

Mom Afsheen Shahid brought her two boys to the outdoor lessons, saying she’s frustrated that the “government is not giving any importance to parents and our values. They should be emphasizing science and math and writing, but they are more emphasizing things that should not be taught.”

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She expects to keep her younger son out of Thorncliffe and her older son out of Valley Park middle school for a month.

Her son Hassan, 12, said he made a few new friends and learned some algebra. Being out of his regular school will be “OK for a little while,” he said, adding he was used to his old school and teachers, and seeing all his friends.

His mom hopes the government will listen and do something by October.

“Unfortunately, we chose (Kathleen Wynne) and now when she is chosen, she has forgotten all about us,” she said.

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