On May 22, 2024, the Board of Trustees approved the elimination of the legacy technical and commercial boundaries for the following schools:
- Central Technical School
- Central Toronto Academy
- Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute
- Northern Secondary School
- Victoria Park Collegiate Institute
- Western Technical-Commercial School
The legacy technical and commercial boundaries are large regional boundaries that only apply to these six schools in the TDSB. These boundaries were created decades ago when students were streamed into separate schools to take technical or commercial programs. Nowadays, students are no longer streamed into separate schools to access these programs and the former technical and commercial schools have all been reinvented to offer a broad range of programs that include academic programming. The Ministry of Education has also made technological education compulsory in all secondary schools, effective September 2024. Consequently, these boundaries no longer serve the purpose for which they were created.
The legacy boundaries will be eliminated for the purposes of admission to these schools beginning with the admission process for September 2025. These legacy boundaries were dissolved to eliminate ‘as-of-right’ access for some parts of the city, while expanding access to all students in Toronto.
The Board approved that Central Technical School, Central Toronto Academy, Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute and Western Technical-Commercial School become Secondary Schools Without a Boundary (SSWAB). This means that all students residing in the City of Toronto will have an opportunity to apply for admission for the 2025-26 school year. There will be no change to admissions for the 2024-25 school year. There will be no impact for any student already attending any of these schools.
Lastly, the Board also approved a Three-Year Transition plan that will guide admission for the 2025-26, 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years. The transition plan outlines a series of admission priorities and was developed to address many of the concerns that were shared during the consultation process. The transition plan will apply to the four Secondary Schools without a Boundary, and to Northern Secondary School.
Admission to the four Secondary Schools without a Boundary and Northern Secondary School will be facilitated through an online application process managed centrally. This application tool will be available in January 2025 for admission in September 2025.
More information about this review and the Three-Year Transition plan can be found on the TDSB website at the following link:
https://www.tdsb.on.ca/About-Us/Strategy-Planning/Search-All-Reviews/id/189