Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute


Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute is a secondary school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the L'Amoreaux neighbourhood of the former suburb of Scarborough. It is operated by the Toronto District School Board and previously by the Scarborough Board of Education. The school's motto is "Prudentia et Scientia".
WWW schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca/john...

History

Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute was designed by the architectural firm, Gordon S. Adamson and Associates. The school building, originally named O'Sullivan Secondary School, was constructed in 1963 and opened in the fall of 1964 when there was only farmland around it, and as the population in the area grew, so did the school. During construction, O'Sullivan was renamed to Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute, after Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, in which the colours red, black, white and purple were chosen, with the latter colour taken from the $10 Canadian banknote.
As its eleventh collegiate, the school's main building was then extended to have more classrooms, along with larger rooms used for music, art, and autoshop. MacDonald celebrated its 50th year on September 26, 2014.
In 2021, the school board trustees created a committee to evaluate the renaming of schools named for "individuals whose historical legacies no longer represent the values and perspectives of our students and communities". The committee's initial report recommended that three schools, including Sir John A Macdonald Collegiate, should immediately be considered for renaming.
In September 2025, the plans to rename Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute, as well as two other schools, Ryerson Community School and Dundas Junior Public School were scrapped by the TDSB. This was due to the TDSB being under supervision by the Ontario Provincial Government following investigations into financial mismanagement. Renaming would cost between $30,000 - $60,000 per school and the act was deemed as "wasting resources" by Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra.

Notable alumni