Find the best elementary and secondary schools in the city on Hausworth.com
Now that the most unique school year of 2020-2021 is behind us, parents are looking forward to the normal (as normal as the “new normal” can be) school year ahead. Based on what we know so far from the communications from TDSB and Toronto Public Health, schools will re-open for full time in-person learning come September.
In this article we are going to look at Toronto neighbourhoods with highest-rated public schools based on the academic criteria as well as on the overall state of school buildings and facilities. We included schools that are part of Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Toronto Catholic District School Board, French first language Conseil scolaire Viamonde, and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir.
At Hausworth, we use open data available from various federal, provincial, and municipal authorities complemented by crowdsourced data our visitors share with each other. For schools, we will focus primarily on the EQAO data for academic ratings, as well as the so called FCI index for the state of school facilities.
For elementary schools, we take into account provincial assessment results for Grades 3 and 6 (known as EQAO results), and for secondary schools – EQAO Grade 9 Assessment of mathematics as well as the latest available results for Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. Each school is graded based on these criteria, and then results for the schools located in each of the 140 neighbourhoods officially recognized by the City of Toronto are averaged.
When you visit individual school profiles on Hausworth.com, you can also see the details of enrollment, including number of gifted and special education students at each school, age and condition of school buildings, number of Covid cases reported during the 2020-21 school year, comparison with nearby schools, and more.
Now for the results of our analysis, below are 10 Toronto neighbourhoods with the academically highest-ranking schools (including both elementary and primary):
- Rosedale-Moore Park (average rating: 0.93)
- Lawrence Park North (0.89)
- Yonge-St.Clair (0.87)
- Leaside-Bennington (0.87)
- Edenbridge-Humber Valley (0.87)
- Forest Hill South (0.85)
- Princess-Rosethorn (0.85)
- High Park-Swansea (0.83)
- Kingsway South (0.83)
- Bayview Village (0.83)
Interestingly, if we take into account both academics and school condition, the list changes like this (we bolded neighbourhoods that remain in top 10 from the academic top 10 list):
- Forest Hill South
- Mount Pleasant East
- Lawrence Park North
- Rosedale-Moore Park
- Woodbine Corridor
- Niagara
- Bayview Village
- Mimico
- Bathurst Manor
- Bedford Park-Nortown
Leaside-Bennington just misses the cut, ranking 11th on the combined list.
To assess school conditions, we rely on the provincial assessment called Facility Condition Index (or FCI). The assessment is conducted based on a 5 year rotating cycle and determine every school’s state of repair. To conduct it, the provincial Ministry of education higher external inspectors to review essential structures and building systems (including electrical and mechanical installation) for each school.
School detail page on Hausworth will contain the school building quality value calculated based on the FCI, and the higher the value is (closer to 100 percent) the better condition of the school building is.
If we look at elementary schools only, we would have to call out these 5 neighbourhoods that, as we describe in more details in our blog, host 11 out of top 20 elementary schools in the city:
- Hillcrest Village
- Stonegate-Queensway
- Princess-Rosethorn
- Rosedale-Moore Park
- Willowdale East
Hillcrest Village takes the top spot as it boasts 3 of out the top 20 elementary schools in the city:
- Ecole Elementaire Paul-Demers (shares spot # 1)
- Hillmount Public School (ranked # 7)
- Arbor Glen Public School (ranked # 17)
You can find more details about schools in each neighbourhood on HausWorth.com, your source of information about best neighbourhoods in Toronto. You will also be able to compare overall neighbourhood standings based on additional criteria, such as safety, immigration, demand for houses etc, as well as see resident profiles for each of the neighbourhoods.
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