TTC: North/South: 40 Junction West/East: 504 King Rapid Transit:Dundas West
West Park Secondary School (WPSS, West Park), originally known as West Park Vocational School is a Toronto District School Board public high school facility that operated as a regular school from 1968 to 1988 by the Toronto Board of Education from grade 9 to 13. The school offered various vocational and academic courses in the spacious four-storey school building for inner city schools. The property remains under TDSB possession as of 2019 as a holding school.[1]
History
In 1985, Cathy McPherson, the coordinator of the PUSH Central Region, stated that West Park and five other schools were listed as having "excellent" access for disabled persons by the Toronto Board of Education continuing education program.[2]
Decrease in enrollment had the Toronto Board of Education announced in 1986 that it planned to close the West Park facility by 1988.[3] Irene Atkinson, the trustee of Ward 2, said in 1986 that it would likely be the first Toronto (Old Toronto) school closed due to declining enrollment. A task force recommended that the student body is transferred to Brockton High School.[4] That year, the Toronto Star wrote that West Park students were expected to be transferred to Brockton.[3] The Metropolitan Separate School Board (now the Toronto Catholic District School Board) offered to take over the campus and make it into a Roman Catholic separate school.[3] The MSSB's Bishop Francis Marrocco Catholic High School on St. Clair/Dufferin area was over capacity, and the separate school board wanted additional space. There was a proposal stating that both public secular and public separate schools could share the same building.[5]
On January 7, 1988, Ned McKeown, the director of the TBE, recommended that West Park be transferred to the MSSB.[6] On March 7, 1988, the MSSB accepted taking the West Park facility. Sandro Contenta of the Toronto Star stated that the TBE was not willing to pay the funds to make the West Park building shareable between the two school boards.[7] The transfer became effective July 1, 1988. Afterwards, the programs at West Park were dispersed at Bickford Park High School (12 classrooms), Brockton High School (3 shops), Castle Frank High School (special education), Central High School of Commerce (special education) and Western Technical-Commercial School (auto shop renovations).[8]
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