Epic Fail

In 2022, the Toronto District School Board consolidated two high schools into one crumbling, crowded building. Within weeks, stressed-out students were brawling in the halls. Teachers refused to come in to work. Parents yanked their kids out of class. Inside York Memorial's descent into chaos

- DANIELLE GROEN

ON MAY 6, 2019, JUST AFTER 2 P.M., SOMETHING CAUGHT FIRE IN THE AUDITORIUM AT YORK MEMORIAL COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE.

At first, no one hustled to evacuate the 90-year-old building everyone assumed the alarm was a prank or a drill. But, when staff and students finally assembled outside, they spotted flames licking the windows of the second floor. Glass shattered and fell onto cars in the parking lot. Smoke and sirens filled the air. Responders sped to the school and, by 5 p.m., had the situation under control. Then, overnight, the blaze rekindled. It took 150 firefighters with aerial water cannons more than 10 hours to wrangle the fire into submission. By then, parts of the third floor had collapsed into the flooded basement, and the roof and front exterior were completely gone. Textbooks, lesson plans, backpacks, laptops-everything left behind in York Memorial burned.

The next morning, some 900 shell-shocked students and teachers reported to George Harvey Collegiate Institute, located on Keele Street, barely 700 metres south. Administrators at the Toronto District School Board decided that the students would ride out the year there. On paper, the move seemed an obvious choice: George Harvey's enrolment had dropped to 500, half the TDSB's ideal size for secondary schools, and the sprawling building had space for both student bodies to run their own schedules. In practice, however, many of the unused classrooms at George Harvey were falling apart. The building had water damage, mould and ventilation issues. There weren't enough art rooms and science labs for the influx of kids; drama and dance classes had to be held in the halls. Students from both schools packed the stairwells, displaced and disoriented.