The Student School

The Student School is one of Toronto’s many fascinating alternative options for secondary students. Based on the principles of participatory democracy and social equity, the school is kept alive by the involvement of its students. Our small school provides a personal atmosphere where teachers and students work together in mutual respect.

Students at TSS learn that the choices they make affect not only their lives, but the lives of others as well. We stress responsibility, and believe our students are deserving of it. At bi-monthly meetings, the whole school gets together to vote on upcoming issues facing the community, large or small, be it a motion to boycott an unethical corporation, or just how to make sure common areas stay clean.

TSS is unique in several ways. Our entire staff has done positive space training with the Gender Based Violence Prevention, as a result TSS is the only school in the TDSB where the entire school is deemed “positive space”. 

THESTUDENTSCHOOL was also the first secondary school in our quadrant of the tdsb to be certified a  platinum eco school. Well done Green Team!! Read more about TSS’ Green Initiatives at the bottom of this page.

Witness To A City: David Miller’s Toronto. In this book, former mayor David Miller profiles some of the extraordinary people who have worked to make Toronto a better place. One chapter focuses on John Morton and his 20 years of leadership here at THESTUDENTSCHOOL. John retired two and a half years ago but his focus on empathy and social justice remain a fixture at TSS.  David came to our Shelter Auction on December 1 and auctioned a signed copy.

 About Us

Info

The Student School was established in 1979 and has been introducing students to the world of activism ever since. We are a small alternative school within the Toronto District School Board, and we offer academically rigorous courses, from which the great majority of our students continue on to university.

Our philosophy is to give students the opportunity to be in control of their own education, and by extension their lives.  Twice a month, students and staff alike attend a general council meeting in which everyone present has one vote to cast on any topics of importance to the school. These issues range from participation in school-wide boycotts, to maintaining the cleanliness of the common areas.

Acceptance, equity and participatory democracy are essential components of our school, and many students come to the school because we celebrate difference and embrace diversity. The Student School is the perfect environment for those who have left school or whose needs are not being met at the mainstream secondary schools. Many of our graduates have said that if not for this program they would never have achieved their high school diploma and reached post-secondary education.

TSS is run on a semestered system, and the school day consists of four 75 minute periods. A course which begins in September will be completed in January and new courses begin in February and are completed in June. Students can complete up to eight credits in each academic year. There are two enrollment sessions each year.  Check the Registration tab for current information!

Street Address and Contacts

Email: thestudentschool@tdsb.on.ca 

Location

The Student School is located in the building of Western Technical Commercial School at 125 Evelyn Crescent near High Park. It is on the third and fourth floor of the building, which is also shared with  Ursula Franklin Academy. Our entrance is across the street from 169 Glendonwynne, come on up to the third floor. Our school is accessible.

TSS is easily accessible by TTC. Take the Bloor/Danforth Subway line to Runnymede station, then walk east to Glendonwynne Road through the parking lot. Walk north, down the hill and around the corner. You’ll see the great big building at 125 Evelyn. Keep walking along on Glendonwynne until you find the TSS entrance, across from 169 Glendonwynne.

If you live in the West end, it’s even easier to bike to the school. Our Green Team worked to get bike racks installed.

If you do drive, there is ample parking in the Bloor West Village Business Improvement Area.

Map of the TSS area, with walking directions.

The Student School is part of the Toronto District School Board

The GREEN TEAM & the Focus on Environmental Justice

The team has worked hard to make the school as carbon neutral as possible.  To reduce our use of paper towels we use only cloth dish towels and cloths.  In addition, we have installed towel racks in each of the washrooms.  We now use hand towels to reduce our paper and energy foot print.  One of the largest power users in our school is the clothes dryer.  We now use a drying rack to reduce our use of electricity.  Water bottles were one of the largest components of our recycling.  We have now installed a new filtered water fountain in the main hall to encourage students to use reusable water bottles.  To divert as much garbage as possible from landfill, we have expanded our composting program to include both floors of the school.  Schools are not part of the city’s Green Bin Program, so we felt it was important to build our own composter and to compost at the school.  Students in the Be The Change class are working on building a three bay composter to better manage the load.  Our team is working to maintain Platinum Certification this year.  

 The green team meets on Thursdays most weeks and gets a lot done.

TSS received platinum status for 2011/12

THESTUDENTSCHOOL POLLINATION PROJECT

Over the course of this semester, we are further developing a community garden here at TSS. This will include insect boxes, Project Sunflower, orders from LEAF, as well as a school wide planting day.

Community gardens themselves play an essential role in life by bringing together people from a wide variety of backgrounds, united towards a common goal. These kinds of gardens also are available to educate youth in the importance of our pollinators. As humans, we truly are reliant on insects to pollinate our food sources, without them, our entire ecosystem would collapse. Imagine if we had to hand pollinate all crops every season!

 Planting Day

Planting day will be an event that will call upon the entire school to participate. This year, planting day will fall on May 15^th 2012. We have ordered 20 native shrubs from LEAF, a non–profit organization designed to help people plant native species in their neighbourhoods.  We will also be ordering long prairie grasses from the Native Plant Society of North America. The 100 mile lunch offered to participants will be catered by our Food and Nutrition students. 

 Insect Boxes

A major part of the community garden will be installing student made butterfly, ladybug, and bumble bee boxes. These will give our pollinators safe habitats to thrive, whilst supporting the growth of our gardens.

 Sunflower Project

This year, TSS is participating in the great sunflower project. We will be planting sunflowers around the school, and recording the insect activity. This is another initiative to help support the pollinators which are currently losing their habitat.  All data will be submitted to this North American Project

 Bird Boxes

This is our first full year of Project Nest Box (we were the first Toronto school to be part of this project).  The boxes have been cleaned, and we our waiting for birds to take-up residence.