Every autumn, as the leaves begin to turn in schoolyards across Canada and the United States, a quieter upheaval unfolds behind classroom doors. Parents and teachers, already adjusting to the rhythms of a new academic year, brace themselves for the ripple effects of a practice known in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) as "Norm Day." But while Los Angeles grapples with the bureaucratic realities of student headcounts and shifting teacher assignments, a parallel—and arguably more urgent—reckoning is underway in British Columbia, where schools are confronting the rising tide of gender-based violence and misogyny among students.
In Los Angeles, Norm Day falls on the fifth or sixth Friday of the school year—September 19 in 2025—when the district recalibrates its workforce based on actual student enrollment. The process, as LAUSD Board President Scott Schmerelson explained to LAist, "strikes fear in the heart of administrators." The stakes are high: California funds schools based on average daily attendance, and a miscalculation can mean layoffs or reassignments for teachers. "The school has to have a seat for every child who’s enrolled whether they’re paid for it or not," said USC education professor Lawrence Picus. The result is a scramble, with schools sometimes racing to enroll just a handful more students to avoid losing beloved educators.
The emotional toll of these adjustments is not lost on families. At Atwater Avenue Elementary, a flier posted in September 2023 warned of under-enrollment and the imminent displacement of two teachers. Parents like Daniel Addelson described the heartbreak: "At the gates of the front of the school, there’s just kid after kid coming out and they were in tears. They had lost a teacher and a role model that was important to them." The community’s response was swift—petitions circulated, social media campaigns launched, and district officials were bombarded with pleas. Ultimately, a combination of district and school funding saved the jobs at risk, but the episode left many parents, including former PTA president Lori Rosales, feeling unheard. "It was just so hard to, like, work at something and just not feel like anybody was listening to us," Rosales told LAist.
Norm Day’s impact is shaped by a web of regulations: California’s education code, union contracts, and district policies all influence class sizes and staffing. Exceeding maximum class sizes brings financial penalties, and requirements like one adult for every 12 transitional kindergarten students further complicate staffing. The process is so fraught that even Schmerelson, a veteran principal, admitted, "I don’t know the answer and I won’t make one up," when asked why Norm Day is timed as it is.
While Los Angeles families fight to keep teachers in classrooms, a different kind of battle is playing out in British Columbia. There, the Comox Valley school district has taken the unprecedented step of formally requesting a gender-based violence action plan as part of its 2026 budget consultation. This move, inspired by the province’s 2023 K-12 Anti-Racism Action Plan and relentless advocacy by students and parents, reflects mounting concern over a surge in misogynistic behaviors among students—behaviors that many trace to the influence of the so-called "manosphere."
Comox Valley trustee Shannon Aldinger, who has long advocated for improved sexual health curricula and more robust responses to sexual violence, told The Tyee, "For many years I have felt that the K-12 system has not focused enough time and attention on identifying gender-based violence, preventing it and responding to it in any clear and coherent way." The district’s Gender-Based Violence Committee uncovered a troubling culture: policies were inadequate, procedures flawed, and a pervasive "boys will be boys" attitude had normalized harassment and abuse.
The statistics are sobering. The 2023 BC Adolescent Health Survey found that 25 percent of students aged 12 to 19 had experienced sexual harassment in the previous year—the highest rate since 2003. Girls and non-binary students were far more likely to report harassment, assault, and online dating violence. For women in B.C., the numbers are even starker: in 2018, one-third of women aged 15 and older reported experiencing sexual assault, with rates climbing dramatically for women with disabilities, Indigenous women, and those identifying as bisexual or pansexual. Intimate partner violence remains widespread, and incidents of femicide are on the rise, with over 90 percent of suspects identified as men, according to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability.
Teachers are not immune. The BC Teachers’ Federation’s 2025 survey revealed that 15 percent of teachers—most of them women—had experienced violence or harassment on the job. As Carole Gordon, president of the BC Teachers’ Federation, noted, "Misogyny, sometimes we don’t see it, we don’t identify it. It’s just part of our daily existence."
Researchers say the problem is being turbocharged by online influencers like Andrew Tate, a former mixed martial arts fighter facing sex trafficking and rape charges in Romania, and psychologist Jordan Peterson. Their messages, easily accessible and widely shared, are reaching children as young as 10. Emelia Sandau, a teacher and junior fellow with the Canadian Institute for Far-Right Studies, observed, "We have folks like Andrew Tate whose content is accessible, digestible, easily spread and in formats that are reaching audiences as young boys." Sandau’s research, co-authored with Luc Cousineau, has documented a rise in male supremacist behaviors among students, including grunting at teachers, making lewd comments, and even submitting essays defending sexual assault.
What’s to be done? The Comox Valley district has proposed a multi-pronged approach: provincewide dialogues with affected communities, comprehensive updates to sexual health resources, and the creation of guides for teachers and staff on addressing gender-based violence. "It’s going to take a lot of work from a lot of different directions: providing greater education to educators, improve staff training and accountability in relation to how comments, gestures, actions like physical-sexual harassment impact and really poison the learning environment," Aldinger told The Tyee.
Sandau argues that silence in the face of misogyny is itself a message. "When we stay silent in the expressions of misogyny, we risk normalizing those beliefs or behaviours, or sending the message that these ideas are acceptable." The province has taken some steps: sexual health education was updated in the 2022-23 school year to include topics like consent and bodily autonomy, and over 116,000 students, families, and educators have participated in the ERASE (Expect Respect and a Safe Education) training since 2012. Still, with more than 600,000 students in B.C. public schools, that leaves many unserved.
Underlying both the Los Angeles and British Columbia stories is a shared truth: schools are not just places of learning, but microcosms of society’s challenges. Whether it’s the anxiety of Norm Day or the insidious spread of misogyny, the classroom is where these issues collide—and where solutions, however imperfect, must begin. The efforts of parents, teachers, and advocates signal a growing recognition that school culture, funding, and safety are deeply intertwined. As debates continue and reforms are proposed, one thing is clear: the future of education depends on more than just numbers—it depends on the courage to confront the realities facing students and staff alike.
