Senator O'Connor College School (also called SOCS, Senator O'Connor CS, Senator O'Connor, OCS, or simply Senator or O'Connor), previously known as John J. Lynch High School until 1967 is a Separate high school in the Parkwoods neighbourhood in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada serving grades 9 to 12 in the communities of Wexford, Maryvale, Don Mills, and Dorset Park.
The school was named after Senator Frank O'Connor, founder of the Laura Secord chocolate company. The school is part of the Toronto Catholic District School Board and was originally founded as John J. Lynch High School in 1963, named after the first archbishop of Toronto from 1870 to 1888, John Joseph Lynch. It had 1,414 students as of March 2018, and was ranked 266 of 738 secondary schools in the 2017-18 Fraser Institute School Report Card.
Contents
History
The story
Frank Patrick O'Connor was a Canadian politician, businessman, philanthropist. He was the founder of Laura Secord Chocolates and Fanny Farmer, and the namesake behind O'Connor Drive in Toronto. He is the son of Mary Eleanor McKeown and Patrick O'Connor, O'Connor quit school at the age of 14 and started working at Canadian General Electric in Peterborough. He married Mary Ellen Hayes and moved with her to Toronto in 1912. He opened the Laura Secord Candy Store on Yonge Street in 1913 as he expanded the store across Canada and into the United States where it was known as Fanny Farmer Candy Stores.
As a Roman Catholic, he gave $500,000 in the 1930s to the Archdiocese of Toronto under the trusteeship of Cardinal James Charles McGuigan. O'Connor was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1935 by Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. He represented the senatorial division of Scarborough Junction, Ontario until his death in 1939. O'Connor survived his wife, who died in 1931, and died at this estate at age 54.
The school history
Prior to the founding of Senator O'Connor College School, several high schools were established around that area after the openings of Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute in Scarborough (1954), Don Mills Collegiate Institute (1957) and nearby Victoria Park Collegiate Institute (1960). In the meantime, several catholic separate schools within the Metropolitan Separate School Board (MSSB, renamed later to the Toronto Catholic District School Board) were opened such as Precious Blood Separate School in 1953 and Annunciation Separate School in 1965.
Senator O'Connor College School was founded by the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Daughters of Wisdom in 1963 as John J. Lynch High School, becoming the first co-educational Catholic school in the Toronto archdiocese. In 1965, the second school building designed in an hexagon by Fisher Tedman Architects was erected, given the name Senator O’Connor College School with Brother Denis F.S.C. as its inaugurating principal. Starting in the 1967–68 school year, the "Senator O'Connor" name became the name for the whole school combining the Lynch and O'Connor buildings while the ninth and tenth grades were placed by the MSSB while grades 11–13 continued to be taught by their religious orders. The high school was built on land given to them by Senator Frank Patrick O'Connor, a Catholic philanthropist and founder of Laura Secord Chocolates, a Canadian chocolatier and ice cream company.
Senator O'Connor's House and Garage, and another building, belonging to the Christian Brothers, still exist on campus, and the Christian Brothers still lived there as a Provincial Office up until 2002.
In the 1970s, the Christian Brothers were an active part of school life, teaching classes, holding positions in the school administration and assisting with cafeteria monitoring. The administration of the school was turned over to lay teachers in 1973.
The school used to be split up into three main structures: the main O'Connor building, the JJ Lynch building, and a later addition of a complex of portables under one roof called the "Taj" or the "Taj Mahal". There was also another area with over a half dozen portables. There used to be an indoor swimming pool connected to the house, but it was torn down sometime in the late 1980s or early 90s. The Christian Brothers' house was located in the center of the campus, and so students would pass right in front of it or around it on all sides daily.
Administration
Notable alumni
Isabel Bayrakdarian - soprano, Juno Award winner
Ben Johnson - sprinter
John Kawaja - World Champion curler
Steve Konroyd - former NHL hockey player
Elvira Kurt - stand-up comedian
Maestro Fresh Wes - rapper/producer
Todd McCarthy - politician, Member of Provincial Parliament for Durham
Jennifer McKelvie (née Gray) - Deputy Mayor of Toronto & City Councillor
Mark McKoy - Olympian (1992 Summer Olympics)
Tim Micallef - sports broadcaster and radio host
Tre Mission - rapper/producer
Bill Morneau - Canada's Minister of Finance November 4, 2015 – August 17, 2020
Larry Murphy - former professional ice hockey player
Nasri - songwriter/producer, lead singer of MAGIC!
Cindy Nicholas - marathon swimmer (Lake Ontario), former politician
Natalia Popova - Ukrainian figure skater
Harland Williams - stand-up comedian
Kevin McKeown and Eric Owen - musicians of the band Black Pistol Fire