Chilliwack School District apologizes for middle school previously engaged in ‘slave day’

CHILLIWACK (NEWS 1130) — The Chilliwack School District has apologized after an Instagram post brought to light something known as “slave day” that took place at a local middle school more than a decade ago.

Layla Mohammed is a Black woman who attended Rosedale Traditional Community School in the past. She is now offered her own thoughts on what schools could be doing to push for change.

On “slave day” Mohammed explains students were auctioned off to teachers and their peers to raise money for the facility.

“They would get their ‘slave’ to do dirty work, they would get them to do embarrassing things. One thing I remember was one teacher putting a leash on one student and having them walk down the hallway like a dog, crawling on the floor. Everybody was laughing. For some reason, they thought that was ok,” she says.

Mohammed says she belives teaching Black and Indigenous history “properly – not from the colonizers’ point of view, but from the real facts of what actually happened” will assist in students getting a more rounded education.

“We also need to teach kids to be anti-racist because it’s not enough anymore to just be ‘not racist,'” Mohammed adds.

The former middle school student told NEWS 1130 that the current principal of Rosedale Traditional Community School has reached out to her family to offer an apology.

The Chilliwack School District has also apologized through a statement for the event.

“As a School District, we don’t have all the answers. We make mistakes. And we need to learn from them,” the statement reads.

“Just as it is wrong today, it was wrong then.”

Mohammed adds while she is speaking up now, it would of been very difficult to say something at the time she was attending the school.

She says the response she’s gotten since posting the “slave day” yearbook photos online, “The reaction then would’ve traumatized me.”