Unionville High School (Ontario)

Arts Unionville, formally known as Arts York, is a four-year program that high school students take concurrently with the mainstream academic program. The high school enrols students from all over the Greater Toronto Area. In 2010, due to school board changes, Arts York was forced to change their program name to Arts Unionville and will only take students from the Markham area, except for piano and stringed instruments.[13] Class 2012 was the last year of Arts York. However, in the 2009–10 school year, the program was renamed "Arts Unionville" [14] Shortly after, the York Region District School Board removed funding for busing, thus eliminating transportation means for long-distance students attending the program. As a result, students were forced to drop out. The decision was protested by many parents and students, and after hiring a lawyer, they settled out of court to have funding for bus transportation reinstated for the rest of the 2008–2009 school year.[15] Students living in areas not around Unionville were expected to attend arts schools in their own districts. As a result, the pool of talent for these programs has significantly declined.[16]

The Musical Arts department is the biggest section of Arts Unionville at Unionville High School. There are four classrooms for music situated in the east wing of the school directly adjacent to the underground link to the Markham Theatre. With its strategic placement, it is often said amongst faculty, staff, and students that the Music department is located in its own east wing.

The Arts Unionville Music program is separated into six categories: piano, winds, strings, vocal, brass, and percussion.[17]

The Visual Arts program provides opportunities for individual creative and imaginative growth as well as development of technical skills.[18] In this program, students are introduced to both traditional and experimental perspectives in painting and drawing. They will also be specializing in sculpture, photography, digital, printmaking (etching and silkscreen), and video. Students will also study art history and will learn to critically analyze their own work, enabling the students to discover individual strengths and directions. For the purpose of developing the aptitudes of talented students interested in the Visual Arts, programs are offered in all four years.

The Drama Department explores university level dramatic arts. Disciplines such as mask, mime, clown and Shakespeare are presented to the actors and explored through self-discovery.[19]

Dance arts is another popular program in Arts Unionville. This program focuses on the development of creativity, artistry, and technique needed to improve dance expression.[20] Students in this program are given opportunities to participate in dance programs such as Dance Infusion, Dance Access, and The Nutcracker productions in December staged by the National Ballet of Canada.

Each year, Grade 9 students across Ontario are issued province-wide standardized tests in Mathematics. The tests themselves are administered by the Ontario Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO). The Mathematics assessment is graded under the Ontario rubric, where level 3 is considered the provincial standard, and level 4 is considered above the provincial standard. In the 2012–13 academic year:

• 34% of Unionville students, enrolled in the academic program, scored level 4 in EQAO Math Assessment (only 13% of all students in Ontario achieved this standard).[23]
• 97% of Unionville students, enrolled in the academic program, scored level 3 or above in EQAO Math Assessment (only 84% of Ontario students achieved this standard).[23]

In addition to the Grade 9 mathematics assessment, EQAO also administers the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, a standardized test for high school students in Ontario who wish to graduate from an Ontario secondary school and obtain their Ontario Secondary School Diploma. The test is written every year on the last Thursday of March in all public secondary schools including Unionville. In the 2009 testing:

• 96% of Unionville students who were taking the test for the first time passed the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, (compared to an 82% success rate for the province as a whole).[24]

The school itself has also formed extra-curricular clubs or teams to compete in academic competitions such as the national Reach for the Top trivia game show and the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA). Several students representing the school have been sent to represent the province in international DECA competitions, and in some cases, achieving stellar results during the competition.[25][26] Students also have the opportunity to compete in the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (COMC) each year as individuals and as a part of the school team each year.[27]

Besides the school's arts programs, the school also has a respectable athletics program competing in the York Region Athletic Association and OFSAA. Following are some of the sports in which the school participates:

A notable member of the Unionville High School hockey team was Cody Hodgson, who played for the Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL. An autographed jersey can be found in the school.

The school is home to many clubs, although the number of clubs and their continuance varies per academic year. Some of the more longstanding clubs would include:[28]

The YRDSB International Languages Program holds Cantonese, Greek, Japanese, and Mandarin classes for Senior Kindergarten to Grade 8 on various days of the week at Unionville High School.[29]