St. Patrick Catholic Secondary School
Encyclopedia
St. Patrick Catholic Secondary School (also The Centre for Arts, Media, and Technology @ St. Patrick Catholic Secondary School) is a Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 located in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 and operated by the Toronto Catholic District School Board
Toronto Catholic District School Board
The Toronto Catholic District School Board is the publicly-funded Catholic school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, headquartered in North York. It is one of the two English boards of education in the City of Toronto, serving the former municipalities of Scarborough, North York, York, East York,...

. Also known as SPCSS, St. Pats, or just Pats, it is dedicated to Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....

 of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. One of Toronto's oldest schools, St. Patrick's grew out of an elementary school founded in 1852; the secondary school opened in 1986 on D'Arcy Street. In 1989 St. Patrick moved from downtown Toronto into a former public school in Toronto's east end.

History

One of Toronto's oldest catholic schools, St. Patrick was founded as an elementary school on D'Arcy Street in downtown Toronto in 1852 during the introduction of publicly funded education in Canada. At first a primarily Irish school, St. Patrick (patron of Ireland) and St. Marguerite Bourgeoys (a French Canadian) were chosen as the patrons.

In 1986 with the extension of public funding of catholic education to secondary schools, St. Patrick became a secondary school and began to search for a new site. In 1989, during a period of reorganisation by the Toronto Public School Board, Lakeview Public Secondary School, in a new building on the site of a former quarry at 49 Felstead Ave. in Toronto's east end, was closed due to low enrolement and the property was turned over to the Metropolitan Separate School Board (now the Toronto Catholic District School Board) to be the new site for St. Patrick. The school has a large feeder area, serving Catholics from almost all of the former City of Toronto's east end.

The School Today

The school has seen drastic changes in enrolement over the years as schools in Toronto have suffered from the movement of many families to the suburbs. During the 1990s, after a long period of immigration to Toronto of many Catholic families, St. Patrick's had up to 1,500 students housed in the five storey school building. The student population began to dwindle in the 2000s and now stands at only 566 students. The ethnic make-up of the student population has also changed; today it is very diverse with a large number of Hispanic, White, Filipino and Black students including many from immigrant families.

During the years St. Patrick has undergone extensive renovations with the purchase of new up-to-date facilities for theatre and visual arts, physical education and construction technology.

Campus features
  • Swimming Pool
  • Outdoor Tennis/Basketball Court
  • Full Size Track and Field
  • Great View Of Lake Shore and Downtown from different parts of the school
  • Two Music Rooms
  • Mini Restaurant Called The Shamrock served by student in the Hospitality and Tourism Course
  • Three Computer Labs
  • Full Size Auditorium
  • Windowed Cafeteria with full view of School Sports Field & panoramam of the city
  • A Chapel for both Staff and Students
  • Wood Shop
  • Dance Studio
  • Workout Room
  • Daycare attached


In June 2010, St. Patrick was chosen to be a grade 9-12 Arts, Media and Technologies Centre by TCDSB. This program will start in the 2011-2012 school year. However, the arts portion is an audition-only basis, while the media/technology having no auditions.

Feeder schools

  • St. Ann (Riverdale)
  • Holy Name (Chester)
  • St. Joseph (Leslieville)
  • St. William (Jones-Blake)
  • St. Brigid (Coleman)

East York
  • Holy Cross (Pape Village)
  • St. Aloysius (Glebeholme)
  • John XXIII (Flemingdon Park)
  • Canadian Martyrs (Woodbine Heights)
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