Western Technical-Commercial School is a high school in the

High Park North High Park North, or often simply High Park, after the park, is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is bounded on the south by Bloor Street, on the west by Runnymede Road, on the north by Annette Street, Quebec Avenue and Humberside Ave ...

neighbourhood of

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

oversighted by the

Toronto District School Board The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular franco ...

. It shares the same building with

Ursula Franklin Academy Ursula Franklin Academy (colloquially known as UFA; pronounced as oo-faa) is a public high school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located in the High Park neighbourhood, it was owned by the Toronto Board of Education until its merger into the Toront ...

and

The Student School 'THESTUDENTSCHOOL' is an alternative high school in the Toronto District School Board, founded in 1979 for people who had dropped out of high school to find work before graduating, mostly from general-level academic programmes. Finding that not ha ...

. The school was founded in 1927 and was part of the

Toronto Board of Education The Toronto Board of Education (TBE; commonly known as School District 15), officially known as the Board of Education for the City of Toronto, is the former secular school district serving the pre-merged city of Toronto. The board offices were l ...

until 1998. Originally two schools when it was opened, Western Branch Technical School and Western High School of Commerce, the present school is now the product of the merger of the two. Western, commonly called WTCS or Western Tech, offers courses from grade 9 through 12 in Academic and Gifted levels. In 2022, it was reported to have 1139 total students enrolled.

History

The main

Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

building was constructed in 1927, with the addition being constructed in 1967–1970. The school features amenities such as a pool and two gyms, a greenhouse, a large library, and a media lab. The school has been used as a filming location for a number of movies and TV shows, including ''Billy Madison'', ''Being Erica'', and ''The Queen's Gambit''.

Media

In the 2000s, Western Tech students started a newspaper titled ''The Hidden Agenda'', with issues printed as recently as 2011 and some online activity in 2012. It reported on student events and was run by students with final approval by the administration. In the 2022/2023 academic year, it was revived under the name ''The Horseshoe''.

Athletics

The school has a wide variety of teams and intramurals, from the traditional soccer, basketball, hockey, water polo and baseball to ping pong and a Reach for the Top quiz team. Intramurals include floor hockey, volleyball, and basketball, among others. Western has a full size pool, and runs Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross courses at greatly reduced prices for students of the school. Current aquatics leadership students are welcomed to assist in teaching the program.

Manufacturing Technology/Robotics

Western Technical-Commercial School offers a number of manufacturing technology courses utilizing the schools machine shop facilities. The school also has a successful

FIRST Robotics For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (''FIRST'') is an international youth organization that operates the ''FIRST'' Robotics Competition, ''FIRST'' LEGO League Challenge, ''FIRST'' LEGO League Explore, ''FIRST'' LEGO Leagu ...

team (865/Warp7).

Notable alumni

* J. P. Anderson - hockey player *

Gwendolyn McEwen Gwendolyn Margaret MacEwen (1 September 1941 – 29 November 1987) was a Canadian poet and novelist.Gwendoly ...

- poet

References

External links

Western Technical-Commercial School official website

Western Technical-Commercial School profile on the Toronto District School Board website

Western Technical-Commercial School Music Department

The Horseshoe - Student Newspaper Website
{{Toronto High Schools High schools in Toronto Schools in the TDSB Educational institutions established in 1927 1927 establishments in Ontario