Sudbury Secondary School

This school I can honestly say was my home. I switched from another school half way through grade 10 and was accepted almost instantly walking in. Walking into those doors made me feel home, the school is the most accepting school i have ever been to. I graduated in January 2017 and it was the most bittersweet feeling ever. Once a North Star always a North Star!

When I toured the school in August of 2015, one of the vice principals (Baleney, I believe, but I'm unsure of the spelling) told my mother and I in no uncertain terms that academic accommodations would be made for me because of my gifted status I'd earned in elementary school. No such accommodations were ever made in the two years I'v been here. Overall, the school is very lacking in academics. It took far too long to cover books and assignments in English, and we actually skipped an entire unit in my grade 11 academic biology but were still expected to complete our culminating assignments using information from a unit we were not taught. Very little was explained in my grade 9-10 science classes, we would learn for the first twenty minutes and then the class would become distracted and the teacher would talk about something unrelated, such as how eating liver was helping his dog fight off disease. In some classes I would occasionally skip days and when I would return, my classmates and the teacher had told me I'd missed no notes or assignments. /Some/ teachers weren't like this at all, my grade 10 math class comes to mind as one that was pretty good, but /most/ of my classes were like this and a it was very discouraging. It has made me not want to put any effort into school at all because I know either way my grades wont be affected. Whenever I complained about the academics, every teacher and student would tell me, "What did you expect? This is an arts school". I joined the music program in my grade nine year. I have asthma, so I wanted to play a non wind/brass instrument. I was told I had to be a major to do that. I asked how I would become a major. I was told to pick and instrument to learn and they'd let me major, but I was told I could only pick a wind instrument. So I became a major with a flute, and when I asked to switch, like I was told I would be allowed to do once I became a major, I was told no, you are a flute now. You have to learn the flute. I still needed an art credit to graduate, so begrudgingly, I played the flute. Then, halfway through the year the only instrumental music teacher left for personal reasons and we had substitutes for the rest of the year. As soon as the music teacher returned, she announced her retirement and was replaced by a teacher who was a Sud-Sec graduate and who ran the program in the exact same way as she had. Only one instrumental teacher, and you may only play wind and brass instruments (unless you take lessons for an instrument outside of school or you are lucky). Oh yes, and the other schools in Sudbury get just as many if not more awards than us for their drama, music and arts departments. What an excellent arts school! Oh yes, and in May 2017 a student threw a firecracker at me in the school parking lot and nothing has been done about it. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm transferring in August. I will not allow this poorly run establishment to half ass my education any longer.

Best school I have ever attended. If you are a part of the LGBTQ community this is the school for you.

very accepting, very diverse student atmosphere, overall tone MUCH better than other schools: focused on learning, not controlling. Really excellent teachers and the art program is of course amazing and really would reccomend. So nice faculty and good vice principals.

Great art program options