Inglenook Community High School

Inglenook Community High School is an alternative school which offers only senior (grade 11 and 12) courses, and is housed in a historical building in Corktown, in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a very small, community-like school in that it has an average of 100 students and 6 teachers.

It is located in the oldest continually operated school building in the Toronto District School Board. In 1994, Inglenook Community High School was named an exemplary school by the Canadian Education Association. The school features a family like atmosphere and is very community-focused in that teachers, students, and parents are all involved in school decisions.

Mission

CEASA is the committee of evaluation academic standards and admissions. Unlike more mainstream school systems, Inglenook gives power to the student body. If disciplanary measures are required, 2 students and teachers meet with the students involved and deal with the situation. The schools disciplinary committee is made up of students and teachers. There are no detentions and no letters home. Students are responsible for getting to class and getting their work done. The school also creates an environment ready to adapt and change to the specific students enrolled each year.

Beliefs

Inglenook is a welcoming environment for students of different backgrounds, ages, and sexual orientations. The school is a more free-spirited, free-thinking place than typical high schools. Students are also not confined to sitting in seats with desks as in many other schools. They are free to sit or lay on the ground, couches, or on top of desks.

Features

Inglenook offers a unique program called Outreach. Students are given Wednesday off to complete their Outreach (Each day has a double period to make-up for having Wednesday off). Outreach is mandatory for every student. Each student is expected to volunteer in the community for three hours a week, and relate this experience to one of their academic courses by doing a tie-in project which received a mark that is totalled in a final course mark. Once a student has been at Inglenook for over one semester, they can also do a different kind of Outreach, or Inreach, which is the same in that it is still tied in to a specific course, and a tie-in project is still completed, but it is different because it does not have to be volunteer work. Inreach could be anything a student is interested in from learning to paint, learning a new language, writing a play, etcetera.

Inglenook also includes a kitchen with open access for students, which is cleaned (along with dishes from the classrooms and student lounge) by two hoppers after classes every day. Hoppers are two students who are chosen for hopper duty on any particular day, and since the duty is rotational throughout a semester, each student will only have to do hopper duty once per semester. The school has a public art gallery as well. There is a student lounge with couches and books, and most of the classrooms have couches as well.

Etymology

Inglenook means "place by the fire" in the Irish language (Gaeilge).

Notable Alumni

Kevin Hearn, a keyboardist for the Barenaked Ladies, attended Inglenook. He also has his own band, Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle.

Website

* [http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/inglenook/ Inglenook Community High School]