A protest Thursday against the province’s’ new sex-ed curriculum more than half-emptied the Toronto school that has been at the centre of discontent.

Almost 740 students were absent from Thorncliffe Park Public School, with just 532 in class.

Numbers for the Fraser Mustard Academy, the all-kindergarten school next door, were not immediately available, though past protests have hit the school too.

Parents across the province were urged to pull their kids out of school Thursday and a rally was planned outside Thorncliffe, though by 11:30 a.m. about 200 parents and children had turned up.

They were planning to form a human chain around the school.

Eight police officers were also on hand, one on his bike who chatted and laughed with some of the children there.