Barton Secondary School


Barton Secondary School 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, 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 are required by Provincial Law to complete 30 mandatory credits and the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test within their secondary school career. The school also offers special education classes as well as an ESL program. The HWDSB announced on May 24, 2012 that Barton Secondary School would be closed, along with Hill Park Secondary School and Mountain Secondary School with the students to be consolidated into a new, $25 million school. The school was renamed Nora Frances Henderson Secondary School and is expected to remain in service until the new Nora Frances Henderson Secondary School is built. In July 2018, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board got approval on building the new Nora Frances Henderson Secondary School. Construction is to last about 2 years. Construction started on September 27, 2018. The school was designed by CS&P Architects and is being built by Tambro Construction.

History

BSS was founded on November 11, 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 certification because Barton is a CWB testing facility. B.S.S. has over 150 courses, though not all are offered at any given time.

School specialization

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. This program is taught largely through the use of online material as the school does not have the required equipment to provide students so that they may do the lab portion of the course.

Program highlights and student support programs

Barton Secondary School takes part in the following programs:
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: