Simcoe Composite School is a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

Simcoe Simcoe may refer to: Geography Canada * Simcoe, Ontario, a town in southwestern Ontario, near Lake Erie, Canada * Simcoe County, a county in central Ontario, Canada * Lake Simcoe, a lake in central Ontario, Canada * Simcoe North, a federal and pr ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada. More than 800 students attend this rural secondary school and courses range from

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

, French, Art, Music, and Mathematics to

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

s, Business, Athletics, Cosmetology, Tech, World History,

Civics Civics is the study of the rights and obligations of citizens in society. The term derives from the Latin word ''civicus'', meaning "relating to a citizen". The term relates to behavior affecting other citizens, particularly in the context of ...

, and

Drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

class. In 2003, the school suffered the loss of their gym in an act of arson. Several years and many fundraisers later, the ''Sabredome'' was officially opened again in 2006. Megan Timpf, a representative for the 2008 Canadian softball team at the Olympic Games in Beijing attended this high school. Other notable alumni include the late saxophonist Margo Davidson, one of the founding members of

The Parachute Club The Parachute Club was a Canadian band formed in Toronto in 1982. They released three top 40 hits in Canada between 1983 and 1987, including "Rise Up", "At the Feet of the Moon" and "Love Is Fire" (which featured guest duet vocals from John Oa ...

, which achieved international success in the 1980s, and

Rick Danko Richard Clare Danko (December 29, 1943 – December 10, 1999) was a Canadian musician, bassist, songwriter, and singer, best known as a founding member of the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. During ...

, the bassist of The Band.

Rob Blake Robert Bowlby Blake (born December 10, 1969) is a Canadian professional ice hockey executive and former player. He is the current general manager of the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was originally drafted by the Kin ...

, the former captain of the

Los Angeles Kings The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent ...

of the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

and Olympic Gold Medal winner for men's ice hockey, also attended Simcoe Composite School starting in 1983 and ending around 1987. Dr. Robert Gardner emigrated to this school from

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

and graduated as a member of the Class of 1956.

Campus life

Bridge special needs program

There is also a

special education Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...

program called ''Bridge'' that teaches mentally challenged children how to adapt to

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of ...

life in the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, villag ...

. People in the ''Bridge'' program range from 14 to 21 years of age and can range from high functioning to severely handicapped.

Athletics

Simcoe Composite School students participate in the follow sports on a high school level: *

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

* football * soccer *

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

cross country Cross country or cross-country may refer to: Places * Cross Country, Baltimore, a neighborhood in northwest Baltimore, Maryland * Cross County Parkway, an east–west parkway in Westchester County, NY * Cross County Shopping Center, a mall in Yo ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ent ...

(informally referred to as ''cheer'') *

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

*volleyball Simcoe Composite School has a football team,

team, a soccer team, and a

team that collectively use the school team name ''Sabres''. The school's swimming team uses the school team name ''Sabrecuda'' which is said to be a cross between the conventional sabre and the barracuda. Annual awards are given out for the best athletes in all the sports in the middle of June; as it represents the last week in the school year.

Future

While most other non-religious high schools will remain open in the foreseeable future, they will see more than 1000 empty seats in their classes by 2017. Everything from homeschooling to the rapidly aging local population to the increasing popularity of virtual high schools on the Internet has stunted the ability of the secular high schools to maintain full classrooms in recent years. One of the solutions that could save Simcoe Composite School is to wait for the children in the elementary-grade French immersion classes to graduate into the secondary school system and turn most of the area high schools into "French-immersion" high schools. If all else fails and attendance continues to decline, another solution would be to close down this school and Waterford District High School in favor of a new secular high school spanning somewhere in Norfolk County. Valley Heights Secondary School and Delhi District Secondary School would remain open as their enrolment numbers are still sufficient for their level of government funding. An

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB ...

program will be investigated on starting January 31, 2013. The health sciences program will receive additional

partnership A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments ...

s from colleges, university, and from the healthcare system.

References

External links