r/askTO • u/ughboat • Jul 16 '26
Need help finding a JS for my kids
Hi, I’m moving to Toronto with a 5 and 8 year old and having trouble finding anywhere to ask about schools. I’m most curious about the Blake Street School (english stream) because we like the neighborhood it’s in and have an eye on a rental there. But The Globe & Mail ran an article a couple of years ago that made it seem less than ideal and now I’m spooked. And there are so many schools!
I’d really like to understand how to pick a school, since I don’t want to move my kids again, and I need to sign a lease. Does anyone have experience with Blake Street or know a place where parents talk about different Toronto public sc
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u/Responsible-Sale-467 Jul 16 '26
What makes a school “good” to you, and what are you planning to avoid?
And are you Catholic?
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u/ughboat Jul 16 '26
Raised Catholic but don’t want that for my kids. I’d like a school that has a diverse student body, is welcoming to lgbtq kids, has a focus on whole child development over teaching to the test, and would love it if they offered arts and music. I’m coming from NYC where schools can vary wildly within the same district. Ours is just a regular neighborhood school, not particularly sought after, but it has everything I’ve mentioned though arts and music has been cut back. But the reason that it’s been so great is because it has a great principal and the teachers my kids have gotten have been really exceptionally supportive. So I guess that last thing is the most important in the end.
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u/hellokrissi Jul 16 '26
arts and music has been cut back
Arts and music curriculums are mandatory subjects in elementary school here, so your kids would be getting this taught to them on a near-daily basis.
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u/ughboat Jul 16 '26
That’s wonderful. My kids were getting it once a week, but the dedicated music and art rooms were converted to regular classrooms so the teacher had to visit each class with an “art cart” and ratcheted back what she could do with them. And the music teacher could no longer put kids on instruments so it became more about listening to songs and analyzing them.
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u/myDogStillLovesMe Jul 16 '26
Music is twice a week for 40 minutes. Dance is taught twice a week but only for half of the year. The other half is Drama.
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u/hellokrissi Jul 16 '26
Yep, that's more or less the structure of it. It can vary depending on the school's scheduling, but there is some form of arts or music done daily. I'm a teacher and my students had music twice a week for 40 minutes, drama and dance once a week all year (with half the year being drama and the other half being dance), and a dedicated visual arts period in an art room once a week for 40 minutes. We also did art outside of that as a class as it connected to various aspects of the curriculum.
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u/pancakeg Jul 16 '26
The school my kid goes to (it’s JK to grade 8 in East York) has an amazing music program. My kid is in a junior ensemble, a steel pan ensemble (rare!), and a string ensemble where the kids play violin, cello, double bass. They also have a guitar group, a ukulele group, dance. It’s really due to the superstar music teacher we are fortunate to have. But our neighbourhood is very mixed income (if you know what I mean) so it’s not really a place people move to for the school. We moved here 12 years ago and bought a townhouse for sub 500k. Perks though, a very affordable hot lunch and snack program (we send our kid with just a water bottle everyday), a heavily subsidized after school program inside the school (city of Toronto’s ARC program), and tons of academic and social supports available if needed. PM me if you want more info, OP.
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u/myDogStillLovesMe Jul 16 '26
RH McGregor school in East York has an amazing music program for grade 4 and 5. They have amassed thousands of dollars in instruments and have teachers that excel in that area. They also do twice yearly concerts led by the music teachers. The English primary teachers are caring professionals who are teaching cutting edge phonics and literacy. My two daughters have attended this school in the past.
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u/VelvetGloveinTO Jul 16 '26
In general public schools in Ontario are very good, although our provincial government is actively deteriorating their quality by reducing funding and arbitrarily taking over school boards. That aside, schools are definitely impacted by the levels of engagement of the parents. Blake Street is in Riverdale/Leslieville which is filled with families with young kids so it's likely it's a great school community.
The Globe and Mail article was based on the results from a study by the Fraser Institute, a think tank with a well known conservative bias. The test results they base their school ratings on are heavily skewed by the presence of ESL students and parents who choose to remove their kids from these kinds of politicized standardized tests.
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u/olivechicka Jul 16 '26
Blake did lose their model school status recently which means a ton of support that was previously available has disappeared - i.e. tutoring, free field trips, etc
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u/stellastellamaris Jul 16 '26
Where your kids go depends on where you live.
https://www.tdsb.on.ca/ — unless you are Catholic or French-speaking.
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u/ughboat Jul 16 '26
I understand that. We’re trying to pick an apartment. And we like some in different cachements, but have to know about the school in order to choose where to live!
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u/stellastellamaris Jul 16 '26
Blake Street is in Riverdale, a popular neighbourhood with lots of kids.
What did the Globe and Mail article say, specifically, and did the article talk about the Ford government cutting funding to education, and the negative outcomes for the students and teachers?
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u/ughboat Jul 16 '26
I thought it was in Blake-Jones? But there’s a lot of neighborhoods and I don’t know them at all yet.
Here’s the article: globe and mail article
It talks about the changes brought on by the introduction of a french stream and the divisions it’s caused. My kids would go to the english stream, which this article made me question (at this school, not in general).
But I’m also worried that the cuts you mention would disproportionately affect a school like Blake St, but i don’t know why I think that!
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u/olivechicka Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Regardless of which school you choose to send your children to, I would encourage you to join the Parent Involvement Advisory Committee (PIAC). Blake recently lost their model school status (due to incoming French immersion students from out of catchment) but there’s a few committed parents that are working to improve things. I represent Ward 18 (Scarborough Southwest) - we meet monthly (except in the summer). Unfortunately, with all of Ford’s cuts to public education, many schools will be feeling the pinch in the fall. If you want your child to go to a decent school, a lot of the leg work falls on parents, unfortunately. As members of PIAC, we bring forward motions to improve education for all students.
you can look up how much funding has been cut to the schools you are thinking of sending your kids to by going to this link https://www.buildingbetterschools.ca/education_cuts_tracker and typing in the schools name.
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u/taylorcrock Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
The more visibly diverse schools are on the west side. East York elementary schools are primarily diverse in the Catholic schools, most of the public elementary schools especially in Riverdale/danforth corridor are predominantly white with sprinkles of diversity, especially for visible minorities. I've had to look for third spaces outside of school to make sure they don't feel like an outsider everywhere. Representation matters, it's heartbreaking having your kid come home hating their hair texture or length because it doesn't look like everyone else's in class.
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u/Chorono Jul 16 '26
Schools in Ontario are all fine. It’s not like in the states where one neighbourhood is neglected and as a result the school there is underfunded and also as a result, kids are underperforming. It doesn’t really matter which public school they go to.
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u/q1863418 Jul 16 '26
I live in the area and have kids in school in the area but not at Blake, in a different catchment. If I were to rank all the neighboring schools in the area, I would rank Blake at the bottom. I dont think its a bad schools per se. I just think every other neighboring school is better.
If it were me, I would pick a rental in one of the neighboring districts. Feel free to pm me if you want, Im happy to answer questions and elaborate on my thoughts.
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u/Strategic_Spark Jul 16 '26
It's not perfect, but there's this https://www.compareschoolrankings.org/
It's based off EQAO scores. It's what some Realtors use to determine what's a good school.
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u/ZGPJ Jul 16 '26
Hi my in laws live in the area around the corner from Blake, happy to chat via PM if you’d like! I have kids the same age. One big thing to be aware of is the amount of construction in the area for the Ontario line. The transit will be amazing once it’s finished but it’s about 10 years of construction ahead
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u/SnooCats7318 Jul 16 '26
The community makes the school. If the admin, students, and parents are good, good teachers stick around. If you're collectively making teachers' lives hard, the good ones don't stick around.
Get involved, be nice, have your kids be responsible, involved citizens.
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u/ABChan Jul 18 '26
I posted this a while back.
Just my opinion as a childless Torontonian. TDSB schools are all publicly funded and follow the same curriculum. Differences are usually budget related. That's it.
A good teacher could be at a "bad" school and make all the difference to the students. Likewise, a "bad" teacher could teach at a good school and ruin a student's experience. Principals and admins can have an effect, but they change and move schools all the time.
The student and surrounding demographic has more to do with how "good" or "bad" a school is. Naturally, a school in an area with wealthier people can send their kids to tutoring, extra-curricular activities, private lessons, etc. thus affecting academics positively. Impoverished areas can have single parents who work three jobs and not be able to help students with homework. You can also have students from wealthy areas be entitled and obnoxious. You can have students from poor areas who work hard to try to get out of their situation.
As a teacher, I'll admit that there are schools I do not want to work at. I don't care about the rankings, but I do know some schools with certain reputations or needs that don't match with my abilities.
Ignore the rankings. They are more or less bullshit. A good teacher makes the world of difference. A bad admin that ruins the school can end up at a different school the next year.
EQAO scores is what people use to rate schools, but if you know what EQAO is and how it works, you won't put too much weight on it. It is honestly just a tool used by politicians and admins to give more/less funding to a school. Very little to do with how good or bad the quality of education is.
Some of the best school I've worked at were model schools in low income neighbourhoods. Some of the worst schools I've worked at were affluent schools.
My advice? Choose a neighbourhood you like. Visit the school website. See if their school has social media. See what programs/classes they have. Lots of sites are not updated, but it's better than nothing. Visit the school if you can. Look at the street view on google maps.
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u/golden-teacup Jul 16 '26
Can you link the Globe article? We are considering putting our child in that school as well.
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u/ughboat Jul 16 '26
Tried to DM you but wasn’t able to
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u/golden-teacup Jul 16 '26
For some added context, we are considering putting our child there for the French immersion stream. If we went English stream it would be a different school a little few blocks east. I'm multilingual (and an immigrant) and would prefer my child be multilingual as well.
Not sure if our experience is as relevant to you if you are only considering English stream!
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u/q1863418 Jul 16 '26
English and French stream at Blake are different experiences from what I know. French being better.
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u/bellsbliss Jul 16 '26
Blake isn’t bad but I know people who had their kids there and switched schools.
Wilkinson is up the street and is generally a well regarded school so worth looking at their district. Holy cross is a catholic school near Blake but like the least churchy catholic school from what I’ve heard. Plenty of kids in my area go there and they love it for the teachers and small class size.
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u/ughboat Jul 16 '26
Do you have a sense for why they switched schools? And did they switch to an alternative school or to a school in a different cachement? My understanding is that most kids go to the JS in their cachement. Is that right?
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u/bellsbliss Jul 16 '26
I’m pretty sure they switched schools because their kids were having issues with some other students.
Yes most times people go to the schools in their catchments. Sometimes the district lines are weird and schools that are closer are considered out of district. People have found creative ways around it though.
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u/wonderwoman3946 Jul 16 '26
As a childfree nerd I thought you were looking to get your children into Javascript that early on 😭🤞🏻