By Helen Blackburn
As sad as it is to know the school on Caroline Street (Nottawasaga and Creemore Annex) is closing, it is good to know that something is being planned to mark the occasion. I was happy to attend the Public Meeting for making plans. But while there, I was completely surprised to learn that many of the people didn’t know that the upstairs of the school was once Creemore Continuation School. Indeed, they didn’t know what a continuation school was. So, it is my intent to review what Creemore had in the way of high school education over the years.
The first school, as I chronicled in this paper recently, was the log school. It was quickly replaced by what was called the Cottage School, which was on Cemetery Hill. My grandfather obtained his elementary education there but was required to attend Collingwood Collegiate to obtain further education. This would be been in the early 1880s not many years after the Beeton-Collingwood railway made its way through our village. He probably took the train to Collingwood, stayed with relatives and returned home only occasionally. There he took Grades 9 and 10, which was enough to qualify him to attend Ontario Agricultural College (now the University of Guelph) for one year.
When a larger school was built in Creemore in 1881, there was room for some high school instruction, called Fifth Class at the time. Unfortunately, I don’t have the date when this started. The class was never very big. A picture from one of the years shows about 15 young men and women.
By 1917 the decision had been made to build another school, bigger and better. The old one was too drafty and dusty with no washroom facilities and was bulging at the seams with students. This is the school that will now be closed in June. The three rooms upstairs were to be the Creemore Continuation School with the three rooms on the first floor to be Creemore Public School. Ontario was dotted with continuation schools in almost every small town and village. These schools mainly taught academic subjects. Larger schools such as Collingwood Collegiate Institute had a broader array of academic classes plus a few commercial and tech classes. The new Creemore School now had classes up to Grade 12. The high school grades were called First Form, Second Form, Third Form and Fourth Form. Successfully passing the provincial examinations at the end of the Fourth Form resulted in a Senior Matriculation certificate.
In 1933 or 1934, the provincial government decided that Grade 13 (or Fifth Form) should be taught in the continuation schools. This grade was considered the first year of university and allowed students to complete a B.A. degree in three years. This plan was a great advantage to people in the country, not usually the richest people in the world, to continue their education at minimum cost. Grade 13 was taught successfully in Creemore Continuation School until the 1950-51 term was over. For the next three years, Creemore’s Grade 13 students were transported to Collingwood and when Creemore’s school finally closed in March 1954, we all went to the new collegiate in Collingwood.
The affection for Creemore Continuation School runs strong and deep. For the next installment, I plan to write about the happy years there.