Bloor Collegiate Institute

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Coordinates: 43°39′33″N 79°26′13″W / 43.659292°N 79.436994°W / 43.659292; -79.436994
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Bloor Collegiate Institute
Dufferin
Websiteschools.tdsb.on.ca/bloorci/
School ready to demolished in Summer, 2022

Bloor Collegiate Institute

Alpha II Alternative School
.

In fall 2021, the school was demolished. Students have been relocated to Central Technical School. The 7.6 acres (3.1 ha) school property was transferred to the Toronto Lands Corporation, a TDSB-managed realtor arm. The new school is scheduled to open in September 2023 on a neighbouring lot.[3] A Change.org petition was created to rename the school Bloordale Beach CI, since the new school will be located on the site of Bloordale Beach.

History

The school was founded in 1920 as Davenport High School located in five classrooms on the top floor of the Jesse Ketchum Public School to form the first student body that became Bloor High School.[2][4] It later became Bloor Collegiate Institute in October 1925, and the original building opened in September 1925 had 15 standard classrooms, one lecture room, physics and science rooms.[2][5]

In the 1970s, the school fielded sports teams in football, soccer, hockey, basketball, cricket, volleyball, rugby, cross-country running, track and field, and archery. Today, sports like Ultimate Frisbee, badminton have also been added to the roster. Teams compete in the "junior" level (grades 9 and 10 students), and the "senior" level (grades 11 and 12 students). There are intramural (within the school) and extramural competitions (against other schools).

In 2011, the school won more gold medals at the Toronto Sci-Tech Fair than any other school, and went on to send two students onto the national science fair. Both of these students were from the TOPS Program.

The school was named as the TDSB secondary school showing the greatest rate of improvement in the 2011–2012 Fraser Institute Report. The school is now (as of the 2014–2015 ranking) ranked at 16th place out of the 627 secondary schools in the province.[6] Over the previous five years, the school had ranked at approximately 78th place.[7] The improvement is credited in part to substantial improvements on the EQAO Mathematics Assessment, which is written by grade 9 students. "That is a tremendous result for a school of modest-means families, where ESL is a strong component and special needs as well," states Peter Cowley from the Fraser Institute.[8]

In May 2020, just a couple of months after COVID-19 was declared to be a pandemic in Toronto, the field behind the school was renamed Bloordale Meadow. This made the space more welcoming. As a meadow, this public space became slightly more popular with the local community.

Relocation to Brockton

Future home of Bloor Collegiate at Brockton, effective September 2017.

In October 2009, the Toronto District School Board passed the redevelopment plan on Bloor/Dufferin.[3] As a result, two schools were closed after the ARC review: Kent Senior Public School (2012) and West Toronto Collegiate Institute (2010).[3]

The Toronto District School Board will receive capital funding from the provincial government for the school's renovations.[3][9] Meanwhile, the Toronto Lands Corporation, a realtor arm of the school board, declared 7.6 acres of the Bloor and Kent properties surplus and were placed up for sale.[3]

Offers have been made by the Toronto Catholic District School Board to acquire a portion of the property in concert with the City of Toronto.[10]

The province has committed to contributing $20 million toward the development of a new school and community hub on surplus TDSB land at the southwest corner of Bloor and Dufferin streets. The province has proposed a 30,000-square-foot community hub for the area, which will include licensed child care spaces. A replacement high school will be built on the site of Brockton High School, which has been closed for a number of years before it was demolished in 2019. The new space will be the new home for the Bloor Collegiate Institute and Alpha II Senior Alternative School.[11] It will accommodate approximately 900 students. From May 2020 to Sept 2021 the construction site was functioning as a beach. Bloordale Beach had actual sand and, as it was created during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it was a site much praised for offering a great deal of space for social distancing. Construction on the new school began in fall 2021 and its student body is housed at Central Technical School.

School culture

In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the student body was predominantly composed of immigrants and first-generation Canadians of immigrants of mostly European origin (especially English, Irish, Ukrainian, Italian, Greek and Portuguese although some students were of Indian, Bengali, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Jamaican, and Tamil background). Currently, 70% of students speak a language other than English at home.[7] Bloor students come from the neighbouring community as well as from communities across the city for the TOPS on Bloor Program.

The school motto is "Quod Incepimus Conficiemus", meaning "What We Have Begun, We Shall Finish" in Latin. (It is shared with Colonel By Secondary School, Gloucester, Ontario).

Student achievements

  • Tony Silipo Memorial Award: 2012
  • Recipient of Loran Scholarship: 2013[12]
  • Participants at DECA International 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
  • TDSB Top Graduate: 2014[13] and 2015[14]
  • Queen's University Chancellor Scholarship Recipient: 2014
  • AP Scholars with Distinction
  • Schulich Leadership Scholarship: 2016[15]

TOPS on Bloor Program

Bloor Collegiate Institute houses the TOPS on Bloor program ("Talented Offerings for Programs in the Sciences").[16] The program was established in September 2009 after the board decided to expand the program at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute.[16] However, the programs at both schools are fully independent from each other. In order to apply to this specialized program, grade 8 students must pass an entrance exam covering math, science and writing skills. However, as of 2023, this exam has been replaced by a lottery, by mandate of the Toronto District School Board Student Interest Programs Policy.[17] The program was established in September 2009 after the board decided to expand the program at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute.[16] A student profile and a final grade 7 report card are also part of the application package. There is also a fee, which pays for all core field trips and classroom materials beyond the Ontario curriculum, allowing for additional enrichment. TOPS students have gone on to National Science Fairs, International Business competitions, and others, thus familiarizing Bloor CI's name on the international stage.[18]

Notable alumni

See also

  • List of high schools in Ontario

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Bloor Collegiate Institute (GR. 09-12)". schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  2. ^ a b c Secondary Schools: A to F - For King and Country
  3. ^ a b c d e http://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/0/Leadership/Ward9/P20131114BloorALPHAPresentationReducedSizeForWeb.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  4. ^ "About". Toronto District School Board. Archived from the original on 20 December 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2011.
  5. ^ Hardy, Edwin Austin (1950). Cochrane, Honora M. (ed.). Centennial Story: The Board of Education for the City of Toronto 1850-1950. Toronto, ON: Thomas Nelson & Sons (Canada) Limited. p. 154.
  6. ^ "Compare academic rankings and ratings of Ontario schools". Archived from the original on 10 February 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  7. ^ a b Connor, Kevin. "Bloor Collegiate Institute Credits its Small Size for Big Results". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  8. ^ Kent, Simon. "Success at Ontario High Schools". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  9. ^ Alphonso, Caroline (4 April 2014). "Ontario funds won't cover capital needs, funding not enough, TDSB head says". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
  10. ^ Merringer, Ian (29 April 2014). "Catholic school board may have inside track on Bloor-Dufferin site". The Globe and Mail.
  11. ^ "New school and 30,000-square foot community hub planned for Bloor-Dufferin area | CBC News".
  12. ^ http://loranscholar.ca/loran-scholars/?search=Bloor+Collegiate+Institute [permanent dead link]
  13. ^ Chiu, Natalie (22 July 2014). "Parkdale Collegiate student graduates with 99.5 per cent average". Inside Toronto. Parkdale Villager. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
  14. ^ Rushowy, Kristin (18 July 2015). "Toronto's top students give so-so grade to studying". Toronto Star. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
  15. ^ "Schulich Leader Scholarships: Creating the next generation of technology innovators".
  16. ^ a b c MacDonald, Moira (7 December 2009). "TOPS is a Toronto school gem". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 20 April 2011.
  17. ^ TDSB (2022). "Student Interest Programs Policy". Toronto District School Board. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  18. ^ "TOPS on Bloor Program". Toronto District School Board. Archived from the original on 20 December 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2011.
  19. ^ Goldberger, Paul (2015). Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, Knopf, pp. 38-38.
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