T. R. McEwen School
T. R. McEwen Public School served its Oshawa community for several decades. The cornerstone was laid on October 21, 1960, and it was constructed for approximately $320,000.
When the school opened in early 1961, it was Oshawa’s first French immersion school. Before it was established, French immersion students in Oshawa were bussed long distances, often to Scarborough or other parts of Durham Region. T. R. McEwen’s French curriculum allowed many local families to access French immersion education for the first time within their own community. While King Street School was reorganized as a senior public school in the 1950s, T. R. McEwen was Oshawa’s first planned-for senior public school, built directly across the road from Gertrude Colpus School. It was officially opened in June 1961.
The school was named after T. R. McEwen, a public school inspector in Oshawa from 1939 to 1956. He was born in Foxboro, Ontario, He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University along with a Bachelor of Pedagogy at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Education (Teachers College), and earlier in his career, he taught grades 9 and 10 in a four-room schoolhouse.
Throughout its existence, T. R. McEwen faced several threats of closure, it first one in 1983 and again in the 1990s and 2000s, due to shifting enrolment numbers and the board restructuring the schools.
By the 2010s, the topic of closure was raised again one last time. The final classes were held in 2012, and they were marked with a flash mob with students from both Gertrude Colpus and T. R. McEwen at an event attended by alumni and former staff who returned to say goodbye to their school.
For the 2012/2013 school year, former McEwen students attended classes at Gertrude Colpus School, as McEwen was demolished and a new school was constructed on its former site. In September 2013 the doors to David Bouchard Public School opened for the first time, welcoming students from both the McEwen and Colpus schools, offering both French and English classes as a bilingual school.
With information:
Oshawa Times, 19 Oct 1960, p. 3
Oshawa Times, June 1961, newspaper clipping, Oshawa Museum archival collection.
Hood, Education in Oshawa, page 180.
