Eastdale Collegiate and Vocational Institute is located in Oshawa, Ontario within the Durham District School Board. The school has students in grades 9-12 and offers a wide range of academic and extracurricular activities. Eastdale is noted for having the largest technology program in the Durham District School Board, featuring courses in construction, communications, and manufacturing technology, as well as technical design.
Eastdale Collegiate and Vocational Institute has a widely celebrated Performing Arts Program called the Eastdale School of Theatre, Music, and Dance. This program allows students from Grade 9 to 12 to focus on two areas of general arts study while completing their Ontario Secondary School Diploma.
This Performing Arts program also allows students to expand their arts experience by linking to the Ministry of Education - Ontario's Specialist High Skills Major Pathway program in Arts and Culture. Created in 2008, this Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM - pronounced "Shazaam") is the first Arts and Culture SHSM in the Durham Region. It allows students to focus on applied or performing arts while experiencing "Reach Ahead" activities. These activities include individual clinics with artists, participation in provincial and national performing groups, certification in several first-aid and artistic programs and allow their Pathway Program focus to appear on their official OSSD transcript and diploma.
Eastdale CVI is home to the Eastdale Theatre Company, a 35-year old organization of performers, educators, professionals, and volunteers who dedicate large blocks of time to create musical productions with a high degree of professionalism. Recent performances have included FAME (2002), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2003), Once Upon a Mattress (2004), Grease (2005), The Sound of Music (2006), The Wizard of Oz (2007), Footloose (2008), Crazy For You (2009), The Music Man (2010), Peter Pan (2011), and Back to the 80s (2012). The Theater Company remains primarily run by students of Eastdale. During the summer of 2005, the Theater Company partnered with Summerstock Calgary to organize a performance of "Guys & Dolls", which performed at Parkwood and Yonge-Dundas Square. Summerstock was an arts infused cooperative education program in which students from across Durham learned the career-based details of putting on a Broadway show.
Eastdale CVI has been designated as one of the original eight sites in 2009-2010 for the Artist in Residence program, an Arts Infused Learning partnership program between the Durham District School Board and the Ontario Arts Council. Arts Infused Learning is the teaching of core curriculum subject expectations through an arts medium. Artists and teachers collaborate to teach students Ministry of Education curriculum by engaging them in their interest areas within the arts and track the success of the project by collecting data regarding achievement, attendance, and engagement.
In September 2010, Eastdale CVI and Dr. F. J. Donevan Collegiate merged after lengthy public consultation by the ARC Committee of the Durham District School Board. The Elementary schools within Donevan's Family of Schools have now become part of Eastdale's Family of Schools and, as such, will participate in Eastdale's academic initiatives.
The alumni of Eastdale CVI include Canadian pair skater Barbara Underhill and Durham Regional Police Chief Michael Ewles.
Athletic History
During the mid 1980s, Eastdale had what was known as a powerhouse football program, which featured many players of the Oshawa Hawkeyes football team. During the years from 1983–84, Eastdale would feature a threesome of players that would lead the team to a LOSSA senior football championship. Chris Gill- DE, Matt Kolodzie, DT and James Burkitt QB would all lead the team to victory in some exciting games. All three went on to set numerous OFSAA records. The peak came in 1984 when the Eastdale Eagles senior football team won (def O'Neil), what would be its only Ontario senior football championship. This when the Eagles recovered (Gill) a fumble in overtime to be run back to the endzone. The city held a parade for the team and the team was inducted to the Oshawa sports hall of fame in 2005
Famous quotes containing the words vocational and/or institute:
“I think the most important education that we have is the education which now I am glad to say is being accepted as the proper one, and one which ought to be widely diffused, that industrial, vocational education which puts young men and women in a position from which they can by their own efforts work themselves to independence.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
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