| Barton Secondary School | |
| Veritas Omnia Vincit (Latin) Truth conquers all |
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| Address | |
| 75 Palmer Road Hamilton, Ontario, L8T 3G1, Canada |
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| Information | |
| School number | 893455[1] |
| School board | Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board |
| Superintendent | Sharon Stephanian |
| Area trustee | Laura Peddle |
| Principal | Deb Jukes |
| Vice principal | Bill Torrens Brent Wallace |
| School type | Public high school |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Language | English |
| Founded | 1961-11-01 |
| Enrolment | 955 (September 2008[1]) |
| Homepage | Official web site |
Barton Secondary School (BSS) is located at 75 Palmer Road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and is a part of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. Officially opened in 1961, Barton Secondary School has a September 2008 enrolment of 955,[1] and has 28 primary languages spoken within the school by students aside from English. The school's mission statement is "Educating students to become lifelong learners and contributing citizens in a challenging, changing, multi-cultural world." Students of Barton Secondary School are required, by Provincial Law[2], to complete 30 mandatory credits and the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) within their High School Career. The school also offers special education classes as well as an ESL program.
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BSS was founded in 1961 as part of the Board of Education for the City of Hamilton's plan to have enough schools available for children of baby boomers. In 1972, the school became Hamilton's pilot school in initiating a semester system that had been showing positive increases in student achievement amongst schools in Alberta and British Columbia. Over a four year period results were studied and in 1976, the semester system was deemed a success and adapted by other schools in Hamilton and the surrounding area.
The school has evolved into a modern composite high school that offers a variety in academics, athletics and co-curricular activities. The school has five computer labs, a renovated gymnasium and library, a full menu cafeteria, state of the art communication labs and technological shops. A Specialist High Skills Major in Manufacturing is offered at Barton. In the program students receive training in Fall Protection, Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, CPR, First Aid and a Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) certification because Barton is a CWB testing facility. B.S.S. has over 150 courses, though not all are offered at any given time.
BSS takes part in the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board's Programs of Choice method that tailors learning to specific areas of interest. Barton Secondary School's focus is on the manufacturing industry and offers programs accordingly. Grade 9 and 10 students in the program are offered introductory courses in the manufacturing field, while grade 11 and 12 students have the option to specialize in the program. Barton Secondary School also provides a Cisco networking course through the Cisco Networking Academy[3]. This program is taught largely through the use of online material (with the exception of students creating an Ethernet Cable) as the school does not have the required equipment to provide students so that they may do the lab portion of the course.
Barton Secondary School takes part in the following programs:
The Credit Recovery Program that Barton Secondary School offers is primarily for students with learning disabilities and/or a disability that affects the student in a way that he or she can not complete a required program, such as physical education. The Credit Recovery Program, although offering a student with the chance to gain a credit, does not in fact have anything to do with academic advancement. The program is actually the recycling program and students are equipped with a blue bin, garbage bag and gloves and expected to empty the recycling and garbage from each room in the school.[4]
Barton offers a few school trips each year. These are dependent largely on which class you take and which club you are partaking in and can be broken down as follows:
Barton has extracurricular activities that are largely the same as neighbouring schools. These include:
When compared to other schools nearby, Barton's academic performance is poor. According to the Fraser Institute, Barton ranked at 703 out of the 727 total secondary schools in the province of Ontario, easily the lowest performing school in the Hamilton-Wentworth region.[5] During the 2009-2010 academic year, the school was rated a 2.3 on a 10 point scale. The average grade level in Mathematics for Grade 9 students is 1.9 out of 4, far below the provincial standard. 51.3% of tests in general fail to meet standards. Just over 65% of its grade 10 students pass the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) on their first attempt, with a much lower success rate of 47.6% on subsequent attempts. [6]