Bishop Allen Academy

 

The Bishop Allen Academy site is situated on 14+1⁄2 acres on a ravine that runs parallel to the Mimico Creek.^[2] It was part of the original piece of land surveyed in the township of Etobicoke in 1793 by local developer Frederick Davidson which was set aside for the use of the government mill or the King's Mill located at the first rapids upstream from Lake Ontario and was later used for his 'Brookwood' estate. The house was eventually demolished in 1961 and the Etobicoke Board of Education constructed Kingsmill Secondary School (named after the Old 'King's' Mill) in 1962 designed by the architectural firm of Gordon S. Adamson & Associates on the 721 Royal York Road building just south of Royal York Collegiate Institute (now used today as Etobicoke School of the Arts).^[3] The school was opened in October 1963.

During a period of reorganization of the Catholic school boards after the extension of full funding to Catholic secondary school, Kingsmill was one of three schools to be declared surplus by the Etobicoke Board of Education in June 1988 because of low enrolment and was transferred to the Metropolitan Separate School Board on July 1, 1988 which reopened the school a year later in September 1989 as Bishop Allen Academy. The original school was composed of 135 students under its founding principal Pat Gravelle.^{[citation needed]} The area had previously been served by Etobicoke's first Catholic secondary schools in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish; Michael Power school for boys and St. Joseph's, Islington for girls which, having combined, moved from the area in the 1990s. Before it opened, it was used at one point as the temporary home of De La Salle College for its 850 students in early 1989 because of the flood caused by student vandalism.^[4]

Bishop Allen Academy underwent four additions and renovations in 1991, 2000, 2005, and 2018. The exterior courtyard was enclosed with a roof to expand the existing ground floor cafeteria and a new chapel was designed by the architect Scott Morris. The school's chimney was demolished because of falling bricks.^{[citation needed]}

Many immigrant families arrived in Toronto during the post-war years including many Eastern Europeans, especially Byzantine Catholic Ukrainians, whose descendants form a large part of the student body at Bishop Allen. The school is one of few in Toronto that has continued to grow during a period of falling student numbers as many families have moved to Toronto's suburbs.^{[citation needed]}

The school is named after Bishop Francis Allen, an auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Toronto and former pastor of local Etobicoke Parish Our Lady of Sorrows^[5] which serves Bishop Allen Academy. Allen was instrumental, together with fellow Auxiliary Bishop Francis Marocco and Archbishop Philip Pocock, in the Archdiocese of Toronto's 1960s campaign to establish and enlarge Catholic secondary cchools in the archdiocese.

With the former Kingsmill building built just for 717 students, the school has 30 portables on site to handle the growing student population. In 2008, health concerns about portables that contained mould forced Grade 10 students to relocate to the former St. Peter (now Monsignor Fraser College Annex) for one semester. The board installed three computer labs on that site.^[6]

Bishop Allen Academy educates just under 1700 students with over 100 teachers. The school has several advanced placement (AP) classes. It also supports a French Immersion and Extended French program, as well as a gifted program called SAGE (Service, Awareness, Giftedness, Experience).^[7]

Originally using a blue and grey colouring scheme to match the outside of the building and as a contrast to the red and black of local high school Father John Redmond, the school now has a red and black colouring scheme. The formerly Canadian-style student council led by a 'Premier' with 'Ministers' was changed to an American-style council with a 'President', and later changed to the Bishop Allen Student Government (STUGO).^{[citation needed]}

On the Report Card of Ontario's Secondary Schools, Bishop Allen Academy ranked 58/725 in 2013, and its average yearly ranking was 70/691. These rankings are based on Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test and EQAO results. Bishop Allen Academy received an overall rating of 8.1 out of 10 in 2012.^{[citation needed]}

Bishop Allen Academy has a two-storey 77,705 sq. ft. campus leasing the space formerly held by Kingsmill S.S. in an 11.5 acre land. It has 28 classrooms, four science labs, an expanded cafetorium formerly used by a quadrangle, a double gym that can be partitioned, three art rooms, a library, a guidance/administrative area, and a chapel. The school originally had a full-sized 400m race track and soccer/football field, but it was partially covered with portables; it has since been replaced with a 300m race track/soccer pitch.^{[citation needed]}

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• St. Mark's Catholic Elementary School
• St. Pius X Catholic Elementary School
• Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School
• All Saints Catholic Elementary School
• St. Demetrius Elementary School (Byzantine Rite)
• Holy Angels Catholic Elementary School
• St. Vincent De Paul (French Program)
• St. Louis Catholic Elementary School
• Our Lady of Peace Catholic School

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• Education in Ontario
• List of secondary schools in Ontario

• Bishop Allen Academy