A recent protest at Bathurst Heights Secondary School highlights one Toronto trustee’s desire to save the school from demolition through purchase by the Catholic school board.
“Fourteen hundred kids in the community aren’t getting a proper facility when a facility is sitting there and exists,” said Rob Davis, Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee and city council hopeful. Since the closure of the Lawrence Avenue West school in 2001 due to declining enrolment, the building has been rented to house adult ESL programs and the North York Harvest Food Bank, as well as 400 Grade 9 students from nearby Dante Alighieri Academy.
The building is one of four locations currently being used by Dante Alighieri Academy to accommodate educational programming for its students. According to Davis, the dispersal of students is unacceptable. “Today, we have 1,400 students who are only a kilometre away at Dante Alighieri crammed in like sardines,” Davis said.
Under the proposed 138-hectare revitalization plan of Lawrence Heights, which extends from Bathurst Street to Dufferin Street and from Lawrence Street to Highway 401, Davis said the school would be razed to make way for condominiums and a new school. While he is sympathetic to other groups using the Bathurst Heights building, Davis said that other suitable locations exist in the area for them to operate from. “The school is built to be a high school, not a food bank,” he said. “There’s only one school that has the capacity for 1,300 students, and that’s Bathurst Heights.”
