Students rally after Grade 9 enrolment at high school for special needs students halted

Muriel Draaisma · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 16, 2025 6:23 PM EDT | Last Updated: 7 minutes ago

Scores of students astatine a Toronto precocious schoolhouse that serves those with peculiar needs walked retired of classes connected Monday to protestation a schoolhouse committee determination to halt Grade 9 enrolment for the adjacent schoolhouse year.

Heydon Park Secondary School is described connected its website arsenic the "only tiny student-centred nationalist precocious schoolhouse for young women, transgender and non-binary students" astatine the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

At the walkout extracurricular the school, located successful the downtown core, students waved placards and chanted slogans, including: "Save our school!"

Students said connected Monday that the schoolhouse offers a peculiar spot for girls and means everything to them. The TDSB, however, has decided that it volition nary longer judge admissions for Grade 9 for the 2025-2026 schoolhouse twelvemonth owed to debased enrolment.

Jessica Rotolo, a postgraduate of the school, said she came to the walkout to telephone connected the schoolhouse committee to reinstate Grade 9 enrolment. Rotolo said she has Down syndrome.

"This peculiar schoolhouse helped maine go the idiosyncratic I americium today. All the teachers were truly accepting for who I am. All the students were accepting, but for a couple," she said. "I anticipation we volition support Heydon Park alive."

Dorlean Rotolo, her mother, said the household came to the school's unfastened location erstwhile her girl was successful Grade 6 and it was the lone precocious schoolhouse successful which they were interested.

"This precocious schoolhouse offered Jessica a existent precocious schoolhouse experience," she said. "The attraction that they get from the teachers is beyond remarkable. This schoolhouse is 101 years old. It works. It should beryllium cloned."

Rotolo said the TDSB cancelled the school's Grade 8 unfastened location and said fewer know about the schoolhouse due to the fact that it hasn't been promoted. She questioned who astatine the TDSB made the determination and wondered if the idiosyncratic really went to the schoolhouse to spot "magic" that happens there.

"It's heartbreaking," she added.

Phoebe Ross, a Grade 10 pupil astatine the school, said she has a spot of learning disablement and the schoolhouse has made a quality successful her life.

"I don't privation the schoolhouse to close. It's a schoolhouse wherever radical with disabilities and needs ... travel present to get assistance and to learn," Ross said. "The schoolhouse helps maine learn. And I emotion this school."

Only 9 students applied to Grade 9 this fall, TDSB says

The TDSB said successful a connection connected Friday that enrolment astatine the schoolhouse has been dropping. It said lone 9 students applied for the Grade 9 programme for the 2025–26 schoolhouse year, and it made a determination to halt enrolment to guarantee students had entree to a "viable" program.

"Enrolment astatine Heydon Park Secondary School has declined implicit the years, mostly owed to the information that our neighbourhood schools are getting amended and amended astatine inclusionary practices and supporting a wider scope of pupil needs," the TDSB said successful the statement.

"Central committee unit person been cautiously monitoring Grade 9 enrolment astatine Heydon Park, and owed to constricted enrolment successful the Grade 9 programme for the 2025–26 schoolhouse year, the determination has been made to redirect incoming Grade 9 students to alternate schoolhouse sites."

Several parents told CBC Toronto that their children wouldn't person thrived successful a regular school, but they could astatine Heydon Park.