Growing discontent among students of the Music, Arts and Drama (MAD) program culminated in a petition filed to the Yukon government on Wednesday.

The petition asks the Department of Education to consider moving MAD out of Porter Creek Secondary School, where it was relocated from the Wood Street Centre due to spacing considerations.

More than 600 of the petition’s signatures are online, with 70-plus on paper.

MAD students and parents have vocally opposed the move, arguing the integrity of the program is linked to the private space and theatre equipment that Wood Street Centre provides.

“Our concerns are about the housing of our program, because we were kicked out of Wood Street and we were put in Porter Creek, which hasn’t been going well,” Michael Gwynne-Thompson, a MAD student, told the Star.

“It’s been a really negative scenario.”

Gwynne-Thompson was one of the students who helped organize an online and paper petition asking for a reversal of MAD’s move to Porter Creek.

The petition states that the program cannot operate effectively at the public secondary school.

It explains that the classroom reserved for MAD students is too small to house the 28-student drama program.

The school bells interrupt the flow of learning, and MAD students are ridiculed by the regular student population.

The theatre facilities are also shared with the general student population and are inadequate in comparison to the blackbox theatre in the Wood Street Centre, the petition says.

The petition asks the Education department to return the MAD program to the Wood Street Centre, or consider the Guild Hall or the Yukon Arts Centre as new locations.

Education Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee told the legislature Wednesday that her department did its best to preserve the integrity of the program.

“I think that it is important for Yukoners to remember that this is a serious matter,” McPhee said.

“We are in the middle of a world pandemic and we all must do our part; decisions have been made so that students could return to school safely.”

Gwynne-Thompson told the Star he attended the legislative assembly on Wednesday, with a group of other students, to hear the minister’s response to the petition.

He said he found McPhee’s reaction inadequate.

“I thought it was kind of funny, honestly. I thought Tracy McPhee’s ability to not answer any of the questions was really impressive,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

“Any response would have been better than what we got.”

Gwynne-Thompson said his classmates were hoping for some recognition that the program’s move has been detrimental to their learning.

“It was a shame just how little we were given, because we’ve been kept in the dark and all we want is an answer,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

In an interview with reporters, McPhee said the Guild Hall and the arts centre were considered as potential locations for MAD during the summer.

“Obviously, those places are not schools, there has to be a consideration for other adults that have access to those places, the health and safety of students in those places, whether or not classes could properly be held there,” McPhee said.

The Star’s request for comment from the Guild Hall was not returned.

A request for comment from the arts centre was declined, though a communications representative confirmed the centre has not been approached by the government about MAD.

The minister said the Education department is working on a solution, and conversations are ongoing.

She was unable to guarantee an eventual return to the Wood Street Centre for MAD students.

“To go back to a building that we know has issues may be the decision, it may not be the decision, it may be an arts centre partnership, it might be a Guild partnership,” McPhee said.

“What I want to do is give the latitude and the ability for those decisions to be taken as we learn more about the pandemic.”

This week, a MAD storage room in the Wood Street Centre was repurposed to make room for the Grade 8 students who currently attend classes in the building.

Gwynne-Thompson said the room was promised as a safe space for the program’s equipment.

“Our teacher has been really silent about the matter, particularly to us,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

“He has not been involved in the matter at all, but the one thing he said that was disheartening to see was the work he had put into that room taken away without warning, and they didn’t ask him.”

Gwynne-Thompson said the storage room had functioned as an art room for MAD students – it had workbenches and set-building equipment. He said the walls of the room were lined with 20 years of MAD memorabilia.

“They mean a lot to people in that program; you see relics of the past, but unfortunately, they were pulled from the wallsand put into storage,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

Maria Paré, an Education spokeswoman, responded to accusations that the room was gutted without permission via email on Wednesday.

“In this case, the grade 8 programming needed additional space for further health and safety adjustments and learning adaptations, so a room that the Wood Street Centre programs had been using for storage is being repurposed,” Paré said.

The equipment and props are being moved to another storage space in the building, Paré said, and program staff will have access to it.

The government must respond to the MAD petition by Oct. 22.

Gwynne-Thompson said he and his classmates are hopeful, but not optimistic, about the response.

“Best-case scenario, our class gets moved to the Guild and the second semester class is put back into Wood Street, but that is most likely not going to happen,” Gwynne-Thompson said.

“I think the likely answer, and the one that would be the most disheartening, is that they say no, and keep us in P.C., which is a really bad environment for the program to be in because there’s been ridicule and the space is inadequate for housing all the things the program is meant to accomplish.”

See letter.

More letters on this issue will be published in Tuesday’s Star.