Westmount Collegiate Institute is a high school in the

Thornhill, Ontario Thornhill is a suburban district in the Regional Municipality of York in Ontario, Canada, split between the City of Vaughan (its western portion) and the City of Markham (its eastern portion), with Yonge Street forming the municipal boundary. T ...

district of the greater city of

Vaughan Vaughan () (2021 population 323,103) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increas ...

. It opened its doors in 1996, as part of the multi-purpose campus now known as the Jean Augustine Complex, named for Jean Augustine, the first African Canadian woman elected to Parliament and appointed to the federal cabinet. The complex contains the high school, Rosemount Community Centre, and the City Playhouse Theatre, to which the school is given limited access. The school is part of the

York Region District School Board The York Region District School Board (YRDSB) is the English-language public school board for the Regional Municipality of York in Ontario, Canada. The York Region District School Board is the province's third-largest school board after Toronto' ...

. Westmount is one of the 29 secondary schools in the board which comprises 191 schools altogether. Westmount is known for its arts program and its strong academic program. Many awards have been given to recognize the art, drama, dance, and music program known as ArtsWest. Mathematics and the sciences were also recognized with York Regional awards. The school is three levels with the first floor hosting many Arts, tech classes and the gymnasium, the second floor is prevalent in languages, and the third floor has many computer based classes, mathematics, business, and sciences.

Jean Augustine Complex

Rosemount Community Centre

The

community centre Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole c ...

, which is attached to the northern edge of the school, contains an

arena An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectator ...

, a split gymnasium, and recreational rooms used for different events and programs, such as playing

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

. Rosemount also hosts various summer camps and programs, such as summer stock. The name of the community centre was created by merging the names of two nearby elementary schools and subdivisions, Rosedale and Westmount. The school is given access to the gym and arena throughout the years, such as for the school's hockey team.

City Playhouse

Adjoining Westmount from the southern portion of the complex, the City Playhouse is a 386-seat, community-based theatre featuring a wide variety of professional, community and school productions. It also serves the community as a rental house, particularly during the offseason months of May–September. The box office is on the south side of the theatre adjacent to New Westminster Drive. Similar to the community centre, the high school is given access to the theatre for use in assemblies, Westmount drama productions as well as other theatrical shows and the bi-annual musical productions, Springfest and Winterfest. Known productions to frequent the theatre include but are not limited to City Youth Players, Starbeat, Characters, Judy & David, and even the in-house City Playhouse Productions. Marquee Productions was also a major company to produce shows for the theatre, among others in the Greater Toronto Area, but are no longer producing for the City Playhouse theatre having finished their last projects there in April 2012.

Nursery

Attached to the west side of the complex, the Butternut Child Centre is a

preschool A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary sch ...

which exists for children aged four and younger. There has been a mutual relationship between this nursery's daily functions and Westmount's student body, such as the observation of daycare kids by students taking Human Growth and Development and likewise, the kids being walked around the school during operating hours.

Building

The complex was built by MCW Consultants in 1995, who later built a similar complex in

Newmarket, Ontario Newmarket ( 2021 population: 87,942) is a town and regional seat of the Regional Municipality of York in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is part of Greater Toronto in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario. The name stems from th ...

, Newmarket High School. It too contains a similar attached

community theatre Community theatre refers to any theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community. It may refer to a production that is made entirely by a community with no outside hel ...

. The older

Milliken Mills High School Milliken Mills High School is a high school in the city of Markham, Ontario, Canada. It is one of 33 high schools in the York Region District School Board. The high school's construction was not scheduled to finish until January 1989 because ...

Markham, Ontario Markham () is a city in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest ...

, built in 1988, has a similar layout on the inside to the two; however, it contains a very different

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

and décor. All three schools contain a large open atrium with a

grand staircase The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, through Zion National Park, and into Grand Canyon National Park. C ...

that handles the highest volume of students getting to and from class. Even though these schools are in three different cities, they are all part of the

Arts West

In 2009, Westmount started to offer an

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

program called ArtsWest, where the applicant can either major in music (instrumental), dance, visual arts, vocals, or drama in the following school year. ArtsWest is the fourth arts program within York Region.

Alumni

Notable alumni include: * Alon Badat (born 1989), Israeli footballer *

Sam Schachter Samuel Schachter (born May 8, 1990) is a Canadian Olympic beach volleyball player. In 2010 he won the FIVB World Junior (U-21) Championship with Garrett May. At the 2013 Maccabiah Games in Israel, he and Team Canada won a silver medal. He and pa ...

(born 1990), Olympic beach volleyball player

References

{{Yorkregionsecondaryschools High schools in the Regional Municipality of York Educational institutions established in 1996 Education in Vaughan 1996 establishments in Ontario