School may be out for the summer, but Bradford council and staff are still doing their homework over the need for more student spaces in town.
Council unanimously passed a motion June 18 pledging support for the Simcoe County District School Board’s (SCDSB) planned funding submission for a new high school in town, and directed staff to help find a suitable location, develop a plan to share school facilities and expedite planning approvals.
According to the motion, the school board is looking for an 8.1-hectare (20-acre) site that is “accessible and immediately developable,” and plans to submit a capital funding request to the Ministry of Education “in the near future” to develop the new facility.
“We desperately need a second public high school in Bradford,” Ward 2 Coun. Jonathan Scott said.
In mid May members of council met with York-Simcoe MPP Caroline Mulroney and former education minister Stephen Lecce, who, along with local SCDSB trustee Debbie Connors had committed to “really push” the province to fund the project, according to Scott.
“Securing that second public high school is just a critical priority,” he said.
Scott pointed to the construction currently underway at Bradford District High School (BDHS) to build more portables beyond the current nine in an effort to expand the school’s student population.
“It truly is one of the most overcrowded public high schools in Ontario,” he said.
A report from the board’s April 3 business and facilities standing committee meeting lists a new Bradford high school as one of five secondary-school projects proposed for future capital funding submissions.
The new school is proposed to accommodate 1,168 students, and as of 2023 BDHS was listed as having 1,314 students, which put it at 118 per cent of its 1,113-student capacity.
Mayor James Leduc called it “amazing” to see so many students in the school and Ward 4 Coun. Joseph Giordano warned that even more would be coming as the town’s elementary schools are “busting at the seams.”
“We need to go all in on everything when it comes to schools for our kids,” he said.
The same board report from April showed that in 2023, the town’s eight public elementary schools were at anywhere between 77 per cent capacity at Sir William Osler Public School and 157 per cent capacity at Fieldcrest Elementary School, with an average of 92 per cent.
The town’s two newest public elementary schools, Harvest Hills Public School and Marshview Public School, were reported to be at 115 per cent and 102 per cent respectively.
This isn’t the first time council has pushed for more classroom space in town, and it follows a motion from Scott passed at the regular council meeting on Dec. 5, in which council endorsed the need for a new public secondary school and at least two new elementary schools — both of which should have significant childcare spaces — and that school boards continue working with town staff to find suitable sites for the schools.
Efforts to find locations could fit within the scope of the ongoing work for the town’s growth management plan, for which the first public engagement meeting was held on June 25.
Meanwhile, the town already received some good news regarding local schools in mid May, when Mulroney attended the other of the town’s two high schools, the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board's Holy Trinity Catholic High School, to announce $6.8 million in funding for a two-storey expansion on the east side of the existing building, expected to accommodate the addition of 276 students to the school’s current population of about 1,044.
June’s motion also states that a copy and letter of support be sent to Mulroney and current Education Minister Todd Smith, “stressing the urgent need” for a second public high school in Bradford.
