Displaced students unhappy with TDSB plan
Parents and students at two west-end high schools are unhappy with a Toronto District School Board report that proposes three scenarios for the future of the schools, and supports their least favourite option.
After a fire destroyed York Memorial Collegiate Institute’s historic building at 2960 Eglinton Ave. in May 2019, staff and students were temporarily relocated to George Harvey Collegiate Institute, located 700 metres away on Keele Street. The two schools operated separately within the same building for the remainder of the school year.
For this school year, however, the displaced staff and students were given their own building — the former Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy at15 Trehorne Dr., which closed in 2018.
Board staff are now advocating for a plan that would return York Memorial students to George Harvey from 2021 until at least 2026 while their school is rebuilt, and parents and students are not taking the news lying down.
Charmaine Lillie, a member of the
York Memorial parent council, said council members intend to form a subcommittee dedicated to challenging the board’s plan.
“It’s going to be a force to be reckoned with if the parents stick to it,” she said. “The kids are doing the same. They’re getting their petitions ready.”
Nathan Singh, one of the York Memorial students temporarily relocated to George Harvey after the fire, said students don’t want to return to the school because “it wasn’t as welcoming as you would think it would be.”
According to Singh, now in Grade 11, George Harvey was uncomfortably crowded while the two schools operated there, and York Memorial students were forced to take classes and lunches in school hallways. He said he and his classmates struggled to find each other in the halls, which made it difficult to meet for lunch and homework periods.
Singh said he is happier at the Scarlett Heights building and that there’s less tension now that two student bodies aren’t trying to share one building. He hopes the board will keep York Memorial students at Scarlett Heights until their original school is rebuilt.
“We like our own place,” Singh said. “We don’t want to be where they are and they don’t want us there and we don’t want to be a burden.”
Destiny O’Nanski was vicepresident of the George Harvey student council when the school hosted York Memorial students. She said previous tensions between the two schools over sports and extracurricular rivalries came to a head when they were forced to study side by side.
“To put it in layman’s terms, George Harvey students don’t really vibe well with York Memo students,” she said, citing incidents of bullying and clashes over shared school space between York Memorial and George Harvey students. She also said the fact that George Harvey students wear uniforms and York Memorial students don’t contributed to the tension between the two groups.
Chris Tonks, TDSB trustee for the area, said staff are required to complete a pupil accommodation review for the area before they can begin work rebuilding York Memorial. The review would determine whether the area needs two high schools based on their enrolment and utilization rates and community feedback.
Because the board hopes to reopen the school in 2026, staff aim to complete their review by June.
“In order to rebuild York Memorial, we have to go through this process,” Tonks said. “The longer this takes, the longer it will take to rebuild York Memorial.”
A staff report presented to board trustees on Jan. 29 proposes three potential outcomes of the review, including the board’s preferred plan of consolidating the two schools in 2021, and then moving them into the new York Memorial building when it is complete.
The other two scenarios involve keeping the schools separate until 2026 and then either consolidating both schools into the new building or moving only the York Memorial students and staff there.
The report argues consolidating the schools in 2021 would save the board money through staffing and facility efficiencies and because the board would no longer pay for students to take public transit to the former Scarlett Heights building.
The report also says the option would give students increased access to resources and course offerings earlier than if consolidation were to take place in 2026, since larger schools can offer more diverse programming. Currently, George Harvey is only 37 per cent utilized.
In a Jan. 29 letter provided by TDSB trustee Chris Tonks, York Memorial staff condemned the board’s preferred option.
“We are united in our strong opposition to this scenario, for many reasons which we have not had an opportunity to express,” the letter reads, citing concerns about the consultation process and timeline, the potential loss of at least one school’s identity and the logistics of another relocation.
“The current options do not address the overwhelming hardships we had to overcome and are still dealing with on a daily basis from the aftermath of the fire.”
Tonks said the options outlined in the report are only recommendations, and that staff will make a final decision after community consultations.
“I’ve been through enough of these processes before and what you start with is never what you end up with,” he said.
The board plans to host meetings with parents, students and staff at both schools, as well as school council chairs for feeder elementary schools between the last week of February and the first week of April, as well as a meeting with community partners in the first week of March, and a final public meeting in the middle of April.
Board trustees are expected to make their final decision on June 17.
The board plans to host meetings with parents, students and staff at both schools