St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Secondary School (Oakville)

The first St. Thomas Aquinas school building was built in the 1960s, when it was first opened as Gordon E. Perdue High School. In 1990, the school became a Catholic high school when it was transferred from the public board to the Catholic board for the sum of $1 (as some money was required, by law, to be exchanged).

The original school building was composed of five floors; three in the south end of the building and two in the north. The floors were offset by about 1/2 of a storey at a point just north of the school's main lobby. In the southern three-storey portion of the school were classrooms for the languages, mathematics, business and social studies departments, in addition to key school facilities such as the main office, the school's chapel and the library. In the northern two-storey portion of the school were the gymnasium, cafeteria, staff room and classrooms for the science, fine arts and technical studies departments.

St. Thomas Aquinas also had a number of portables in the late 1990s, which were later removed as the school's population declined due to the removal of the OAC grade and the opening of Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School in north Oakville.

Despite a series of renovations over its lifetime, much of the school building dated back to the opening of the original Gordon E. Perdue High School more than forty years ago. Due to some poor construction (as well as poor planning), problems and inconveniences cropped up as the building began to show its age, resulting in growing support among the school community for a new, more modern school building.

In mid-May 2007, the Oakville Beaver reported that the Halton Catholic District School Board had made it a priority to provide funding for and move forward with the replacement of the school building.[1] A major step forward came when the government of Ontario announced a $15 million grant in early September to go towards the replacement of the school building.[2]

However, requiring a further $18 million for the project, the Halton Catholic District School Board began to look into other options to continue to raise money, in particular a plan that would have students diverted from St. Ignatius of Loyola and Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary schools to St. Thomas Aquinas in order to qualify for provincial grants.[3] The proposed redirection of elementary school graduates from northern Oakville drew protest from parents who either opposed more boundary reviews or wanted their children to attend high school closer to home.[4]

The proposed site plan was also altered and rearranged after the renovation project, as well as the planned lighting for the new sports field, drew resistance from residents in the surrounding area of south Oakville. The Southwest Central Oakville Residents Association (SCORA) was formed in 2008 to protest the school board's "disregard" for the natural setting, the elimination of grass sports fields, the addition of asphalt parking lots, the removal of "hundreds" of trees from the location, and the plans for "mega-lights" on the sports field.[5] SCORA maintained that these factors would negatively impact both the character and property values of the surrounding neighbourhoods.

During the 2008-2009 school year, a series of portables were installed in the area formerly occupied by the school's sports field. By the late spring of 2009, students, faculty and staff had vacated the south end of the school, and a temporary main office had been set up in a vacated classroom at the school's north end. By May 2009, construction crews had finished stripping down the interior of the three floors (100s, 200s, and 300s) in the south end of the school, in addition to the main lobby and the school library. By June 2009, the portion of the school south of its main gymnasium had been demolished, though construction of the new building had not yet begun. Until the new building opened in February 2011, students continued to use the remaining northern half of the building, as well as the portables, to begin the 2009-2010 school year. During the transition, the school's many functions, such as the yearly school play, and so forth, continued to run. No extra-curricular activities were cancelled during this time.

The new St. Thomas Aquinas school building opened in February 2011, coinciding with the start of the second semester of the 2010-2011 school year.[6]

The new school building comprises three storeys and features a theatre, two gymnasiums, a full range of tech and co-op classrooms and an interior running track.

• Ivan Chiriaev – former NBA prospect
• Carl English – professional basketball player, who attended the school for one year prior to attending the University of Hawaii
• Kara Lang – former player on the Canadian Women's National Soccer Team, youngest to be named to the team (age 15)
• John Tavares[7] – current forward for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL, gold medalist with Team Canada at Sochi 2014

St. Thomas Aquinas offers programs for university-, college-, and workplace-bound students. The school is the only Catholic school in Oakville that offers IB (International Baccalaureate), a "non-profit" educational foundation offering four highly respected programmes of international education that develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world. The school also offers programs for special-needs students under the Special Education department.

St. Thomas Aquinas fields athletic teams called the "Raiders". STA is a member school of the Halton Secondary School Athletics Association. Students at St. Thomas can participate in both individual and team sports in any of three seasons: fall, winter, or spring.

• List of high schools in Ontario

• Official School Website
• Online student newspaper