In June 2000, Midland Av Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario closed.
The school, built in 1962, was a first class education facility that looked new.
It was also the school where I’d spent four years of my adolescence, some forty years ago. I was surprised the news shook me as much as it did.
I’d been outside Ontario for 25 years and had never gone back to a single reunion. So, on final Reunion day, June 3rd, I was more than a little curious. Thus started the adventure recounted in this film.
Over the following year, I talked to people from three different generations of Midland students: people who were there with me in the sixties, the children of Reagan and Mulroney of the late eighties, and those still attending when it closed.
Part One starts with the "Final Midland Reunion" of June 3, 2000. Talks with Rick Scofield, city historian, Bob Gidney and Wyn Miller, education researchers, old friends Sharon Thurston and Pat Hipgrave, teachers and former classmates Cal Francis and Brian Sambourne, and my dear, departed friend Doug Hart, start us off on this journey of 40 years of existence and service to the community.
Later I also talked to former trustees, parents, teachers, academics, trying to find out why this apparently absurd event had taken place, and what its closing meant.
It was not just, I thought, the result of penny pinching by the Harris government. There was a sea change of attitudes taking place, movements of population and priorities which were affecting the urban fabric of the place where I’d grown up and probably all of Ontario.
This film is a hommage to a school and a school system that served my generation well. And a question as to "how important" funding good education is for the society we have become.
Part One - The Final Reunion - June 3, 2000
Starting from the "Final Midland Reunion" of June 3, 2000, I started to enquire into the causes and consequences of the announced closure of my old high school -
Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute in south-central Scarborough, Ontario. Talks with Rick Scofield, city historian, Bob Gidney and Wyn Miller, education researchers,
old friends Sharon Thurston and Pat Hipgrave, teachers and former classmates Cal Francis and Brian Sambourne, and my dear, departed friend Doug Hart start us off on this
journey of 40 years of existence and service to the community.
Part Two - Why had student numbers fallen?
Students’ perspective
Interviews with Sharon Thurston, Pat Hipgrave, Amalia Kartsonis, Coleen McIntyre, Andy Sampagna
Part Three - Why had student numbers fallen?
Teachers’ perspective
Sharon Hirshenhorn, Brian Sambourne and Bruce Elliott, teachers, comment on the fall of enrollment at Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute in the 80s and 90s.
Part Four - Where did the idea of a “funding formula”
come from?
Gail Nyberg, ex chair of the Toronto Board of Education, Bob Gidney education researcher and writer, Jeff Kendal, former school councillor, Trish Crawford, education journalist,
comment on the funding formula that led to the closing of Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute in June 2000.
Part Five - Political context and the search for alternatives
What were the effects of the cuts in education money under the Harris government?
What alternatives were there to the closing of Midland Avenue Collegiate?
Was the development of adult education a possible solution? An international college? Interviews with Annie Kidder, spokesperson for the education rights group
“People for Education”, Sharon Hirshenhorn, Brian Sambourne and Bruce Elliott, teachers.
Part Six - The Final Fight to save the school
Judy Hannonen and Erna Kemp, parents, the teachers and Jeff Kendall and Gail Nyberg discuss the last minute attempts to stop the closing of Midland Av C.I.
Part Seven - What is left?
What is left of the Midland experience. Duncan Green shows us through some souvenirs, the kids who were at Midland at its closing talk about their regrets and Annie Kidder draws some lessons about what this kind of event means for the fabric of Canadian society and politics.