About Us
At St. Agatha Catholic School, we pride ourselves on the strong partnership that exists among the home, the school and the parish.
How We Meet the Diverse Needs of Our Students
Maintaining a Catholic identity is what we strive to do on a daily basis at St. Agatha. The national anthem is sung each morning followed by a prayer. This sets the tone for the classroom morning prayer and activities. Catholicity permeates the entire life of the St. Agatha family, from visible signs of our faith, to how we interact with each other. Our goal is to raise well-rounded and disciplined students founded in faith, as per the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) expectations for our Catholic School graduates.
The code of behaviour for the school is presently contained in the parent handbook, as well as the school agenda. Agendas are made available to all students in September. Our parent handbook, currently under revision, is available on request at the office. St. Agatha adheres to the board dress code policy of blue and white.
As part of our safe schools arrival, practice the school oversees all absences by phoning the parents when children are absent to assure that they are accounted for.
As we move into the 21st century, technology is a school objective. We have a computer lab located in our library and sets of netbooks in our intermediate classes. There are computers in each classroom as well as three smart boards in the school. Our goal is to increase the comfort level of our staff and students with all of today's technology.
At St. Agatha we follow the School-Based Support Team (SBST) model to identify students with special needs We have regular meetings to provide modifications to programs for individual students. We request special assessments for students who are experiencing difficulty with regular programs.
We provide a wide range of extracurricular programs for each division. We offer recess house leagues, many competitive sporting events, choir, chess club, W5H teams, etc. We supplement the curriculum with speakers, plays, excursions, neighborhood walks and all forms of audio-visual materials.
Our School History and Tradition
St. Agatha Catholic School was first built in 1964, and is located on Cathedral Bluffs Drive in the Scarborough Bluffs area of Toronto. Until the early 1980s, the school served only the local community. At this time, due to declining enrollment, it became the Scarborough school for French Immersion. This change led to a growth in the student population, resulting over time, in the arrival of 10 portables to go with the original 11-room building. As the population grew, the community - led by parents and teachers - began to lobby for an addition to replace the portables. After many years of hard work and persistence, they were successful. In the spring of 2011, construction began on a 10 room addition. This included a kindergarten pod to accommodate the arrival of Full Day Kindergarten. On February 13, 2012, students and teachers, some of whom had spent the better part of their career teaching in a portable, were finally able to move into their new building. The official opening of our addition took place on June 7, 2012, when the building was blessed by Bishop Nguyen. At that time a mural created by our students, under the direction of one of our parents, was unveiled.
Today, for the first time in over twenty years, the majority of the student population is all under one roof. Only two portables remain, one of which is used for instrumental music. The school population sits at over 460 students, with approximately 60% of them in the French Immersion stream. We are a busy community with numerous sports teams and clubs. We also lead a number of initiatives to support those less fortunate, such as a Thanksgiving Food Drive and Christmas Gift baskets.
St. Agatha has the good fortune of having a strong and involved parent community. Meetings of our Catholic School Parent Committee (CSPC) are held monthly. They are responsible for everything from our Welcome BBQ in September to our yearly fundraising initiative, the Halloween Dance-a-thon. With this strong parental involvement, along with our dedicated staff and hardworking students, St. Agatha will continue to be a warm presence in the community for years to come.