Closed 1995 Area trustee Maria Rodrigues Ceased operations 1995 | Superintendent Curtis Ennis Total enrollment 990 (1995) Founded 1966 | |
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School type Public High SchoolVocational High School Status Active / Partially leased out Address 90 Croatia St, Toronto, ON M6H 1K9, Canada | ||
Brockton High School (also known as Brockton HS, BHS, or simply known as Brockton) is a Toronto District School Board learning complex based in the Brockton Village neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada that currently operates as Brockton Learning Centre consisting of the Aboriginal Education Centre and the Caring and Safe Schools Brockton program. Originally, it is also a former public and vocational high school which was operated from 1967 to 1995 by the Toronto Board of Education, which was later merged in 1998 into the TDSB. The Brockton property, located near the Dufferin Mall, is currently owned by the Toronto Lands Corporation, a realtor arm of the school board.
History
Brockton High School opened its doors to the community in 1966, as a vocational school.
In 1986, the Toronto Board of Education announced that it planned to close the West Park Secondary School facility by 1988 with the latter campus being given to the Metropolitan Separate School Board (now the Toronto Catholic District School Board). A task force recommended that the student body is transferred to Brockton High School. That year, the Toronto Star wrote that West Park students were expected to be transferred to Brockton. The school received students from West Park.
In 1989 Sandro Contenta of the Toronto Star wrote that students at Brockton told him that if a store in Dufferin Mall is robbed, police go to Brockton to find suspects but that students at Bloor Collegiate Institute are not suspected. In 1991, Andrew Duffy of the Toronto Star wrote that, according to area residents, drug dealers sold drugs in the area around the school. By September 1992, an area mall began housing an area which served as the location of the re-entry program for older students at Brockton and the West Toronto Secondary School's satellite campus for the co-operative education program.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 30, 1992 two gang attacks, involving male students traveling alone being beaten and stabbed, occurred. Afterwards many students discussed the incident. Jim Rankin of the Toronto Star wrote that most students blamed "racist gangs" for causing issues at the school. One gang cited by students was the Latin Americans or LAs.
The school had a history of violent incidents as of October 1994. That year, an ambush involving black and white students occurred. Minutes after the attack occurred, another student had been beaten and stabbed. Afterwards police discovered a cache of weapons in a gym bag. At least four students received criminal charges. On Thursday October 20, 1994, a guidance counselor and an assistant principal were shot in their offices. They received chest, leg, and shoulder wounds but remained alive. A 27-year-old student was charged with attempted murder. By June of that year the school was scheduled to close due to declining enrollment. Brockton was scheduled to close in the fall of 1995, with the campus converted into Ursula Franklin Academy, an academic school. Franklin Academy was scheduled to move into a new campus by September 2002.
Currently, Brockton now serves as the TDSB's Aboriginal Education Centre and the Caring and Safe Schools Brockton programs. It is also being leased out to several tenants. By July 2007, the Royal Conservatory of Music temporarily moved into the former Brockton building as the site had renovations. In October 2006, FoodShare, a non-profit community food security organization founded in 1985, also moved into the building, sharing space with the conservatory. At one point, the Conseil scolaire Viamonde leased Brockton to house its students from the overcrowded Le Collège français until it bought West Toronto Collegiate Institute in 2011. As of December 2016, a new secondary school is scheduled to be built on the current Brockton site, to accommodate students from Bloor Collegiate Institute and Alpha Alternative School.