Waterford District High School

History

The first school board meeting for the new high school in Waterford was held on February 15, 1892. The board purchased 1.8 acres of land on the northeast corner of Main and Brown streets at a cost of $150 per acre. The building was constructed for about $7,000 and the enrolment in the first year was approximately 100 students. In 1936 the structure burned down, but was rebuilt and reopened in 1937.

Athletics

WDHS has a variety of sports teams including football, rugby, soccer and cheerleading. The team mascot is a wolf.

Fair Day

Each year, at the Norfolk County Fair, the students of Waterford District High School compete with other local high schools in events like tug-o-war, cheerleading and road racing. Each school fills a separate area of the stands and is judged on spirit and decorations.

Grade 9 Day

Grade 9 day at Waterford District High School has been a tradition for many years. The grade 9 students team up with the senior students and they have an activity day. Although the day used to consist of hazing instead of fun, the school has put an end to the hazing of grade 9 day. Students from grade 9 and grade 12 students get to bond and know one another.

Every year, there is a barbecue lunch for the students and WDHS's student council runs the day.

Musicals

There is an active music department at Waterford District High School that puts on yearly plays such as "The Music Man".

Renovations

The school underwent renovations from 2010-2012. The school got modernized science laboratories, a larger Edukids day care for staff members and unwed student mothers, new gymnasium floors, in addition to new offices for the school board. The school now has its very first elevator.

Also fundraising has been done for a new electronic scoreboard for the football field; replacing the old manual score board still used in school like Valley Heights Secondary School and Simcoe Composite School. Conforming with Canadian high school football standards, the scoreboard shows the time and score of both teams along with the down, the yardage of the line of scrimmage, the yards to go until a first down, the team with the possession (usually signified with the outline of a football in lights next to the possessing team's score) and the quarter.

Future

Waterford District High School may once again face serious threats of closure by 2017 due to government cutbacks and declining enrolment; similar to the fate that Port Dover Composite School faced on January 31, 2013. While most other schools will remain open in the foreseeable future, they will see more than 1000 empty seats in their classes by 2017. Everything from homeschooling to the rapidly aging local population to the increasing popularity of virtual high schools on the Internet has stunted the ability of the Norfolk County high schools to maintain full classrooms in recent years.

If all else fails and attendance continues to decline, another solution would be to close this school along with Simcoe Composite School and create a new secular high school spanning 15 acres or 650,000 square feet somewhere in Norfolk County. Valley Heights Secondary School and Delhi District Secondary School both have the sufficient amount of students to remain open indefinitely according to their level of government funding.