Eastdale Collegiate and Vocational Institute

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, an organization that began in the late 1970s to produce quality musical productions. 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), Back to the 80s (2012), Little Shop of Horrors (2014), and Willy Wonka, The Musical (upcoming - May 2015). During the summer of 2005, the theatre 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. The Summerstock production was directed by Jim Senft and produced by Joan Mansfield.

The Eastdale Theatre Company remained an extra-curricular from its beginning right to 2012's "Back to the 80s". In 2013, the E.T.C. took a brief intermission. The musicals begun their second act as an accredited course. The inaugural production of this brand-new theatre programme was 2014's "Little Shop of Horrors".

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.

In 2011, the Eastdale Theatre underwent a massive refurbishment, including the creation of an orchestra-level control booth, additional accessible seating, creation of a workshop with access to the stage, and installation of an accessible ramp to the main stage area.

The alumni of Eastdale CVI include Canadian pair skater Barbara Underhill and Durham Regional Police Chief Michael Ewles.

Also ,the Durham high school has produced some of the best Junior football players ever to play the game . 1985 had the senior football team have several players that would move from highschool to Junior football in Canada. Oshawa Hawkeye alumni include Matt Kolodzie , Jim Burkitt and Chris Gill all who played for the Eastdale Eagles in the prime of the program .

Eastdale won it's only championship in 1985 -when a recovered fumble was ran back over 99 yards by Antony Prentise_.after the run, players from the team began tearing down the up-rights to celebrate the win . Chris Gill and Matt Kolodzie later went on to play football in division 2 colleges in the United States and remain connected to the high school today .

Glenroy Brown and Dean Hickey also are athletic graduates of Eastdale from the late 1980's. Glenroy won Gold at OFSSA for archery and Dean was a double silver medalist in Roman Wrestling and Javelin in RUSSIA.

Steve Barchard also joined the Broadway play " Phantom of the Opera" as the organ player with half a mask .

John Irwin and close friend Allan Anderson went on from modest garage bands- to both play in the rock band Most and later Coney Hatch .

References

See also

• List of high schools in Ontario

External links

• Eastdale Collegiate and Vocational Institute
• Eastdale Arts Program Page