The Future of Central Technical School

During the 2022-2023 school year, we launched a custom program with Central Technical School which is part of the Toronto District School Board that engaged the whole-school community in creating a new strategy. A team of students led the work by engaging with the community and using those insights to create the strategy.

The student team shared their strategy and recommendations with CTS School Leaders and Educators, and various TDSB staff. We are now continuing to work with the CTS team to help implement recommendations in the 2023 – 2024 school year.

To support student excellence and achievement, a team of CTS educators have been building capacity in the frameworks and mindsets of Integrative Thinking and Real-World Problem Solving. The educators participated in a parallel learning program that will set them up to support the student program, classroom instruction and school improvement.

“We’re doing this for future generations, as well as ourselves, so they don’t have to go through what some of us have gone through, with our identities being told that they’re wrong, or dealing with discrimination for any sort of reason and feeling uncomfortable in a space where we’re supposed to learn.”

— Student, Central Technical School

“We are the key to our future. We have to let students imagine and decide a future they want, and ensure ways we can take action for it.”

— Student, Central Technical School

Letter to the Adults

To present their thinking to the adults at school, the students involved in this work wrote a letter to explain the importance of their work, effort, and thinking. Below is an excerpt from the letter:

We learned that two things can be true at once: your expertise and lived experience and our needs, expertise and lived experiences. It’s not one or the other. We will not choose between adults being right or students being right. We don’t want our school to be one where we dismiss each other. It’s both. Societies and cultures around the world and throughout history have poured all their love into the children and were guided by the wisdom of adults and elders.

As our work continues with Central Technical School we will make sure to continue sharing the story with you, it is one worth telling and celebrating. The students at Central Technical School continue to impress us with their thinking, kindness, and bravery.