School Sections

By Guy Scott

The key to education in pioneer Ontario was the ‘school section.’ This was a geographical expression of the physical boundary in which the students of each school resided. All of Ontario was divided into school sections mostly based on township boundaries. The sections were supposed to be regular in shape, but physical geography and history had other designs. The ideal school section (circa 1870) “would be about three concessions wide and nine lots deep with the school house located in the middle. In the section, the furthest farm would be about two and a half miles from the schoolhouse. The section would contain 54 farms (of 100 acres each) or 5,400 acres, and would yield an assessment of $50,000-$60,000. Each farm would likely have a school tax of about $5 to $7 a year. This local levy would finance over 70% of the capital and operating costs for the school, with the remaining funds coming from provincial grants.

But the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray and it is doubtful if any school section in our area was able to meet these standards. Not every farm was 100 acres; many were larger. The school levy was based on the assessment and not every farm was assessed equally. Physical landforms such as swamps, lakes and other land unfit for agriculture also lowered the number of farms in each section. Some lots were not cultivated or remained crown lands. And the number of children in each family could vary widely from place to place. But the basic principle that no child should walk more than 3 miles to school was the point of the whole system. School sections were set up by the parents living within the section. A group of parents started the ball rolling by organizing a committee to found a school and then approaching the township council. The parents committee were to organize the school site, plans to build a schoolhouse and form a group of trustees. The township council passed a bylaw to make the section legal and agreed to add a school tax on the ratepayers’ property tax bill. Once the trustees were in place and a building made available (either new construction or an existing structure), a teacher was hired and the school section was up and running.

School sections were numbered by township, usually the oldest starting with SS#1 and the rest following in chronological order as the sections were formed. Some sections contained too many students and students transferred to a new school section. Other sections suffered declines in student numbers to the point where they were dissolved and the few students transferred to other, neighbouring sections. While school sections were constantly experiencing student population fluxes, the basic sections were usually kept in place despite population variations.

The schools were almost always located along an existing roadway to facilitate easy access by the walking students. Since the school houses were also used as community centres, the roadway had to be kept in good shape and accessible to wheeled traffic such as horse-drawn buggies. A major crossroads was a good spot for the school.

The Bobcaygeon Road was the major roadway for the townships north of the Kawartha Lakes and was the first major road to penetrate the area. Counting Bobcaygeon Village, 13 school houses were built along the Road between Bobcaygeon and Dorset! And every one of these school sections was a union school section with more than one township involved. Clearly access was a key to school location.

While many schools were isolated in the countryside, hamlets and villages were prime locations for a school. As the villages grew, it was necessary to replace one room schools with multiple class models. Thus, the villages, such as were in the area, gradually absorbed more students until the 1960s when all rural, one room schools were closed and students bussed to multiroom village schools. The union section, while not part of the township grid plan, was often a necessity. Artificial township lines could not trump more practical issues such as location and access. Somerville had 13 school sections and 7 of them were union school sections with neighbouring townships. The expenses of the school were divided up by the number of students between the involved townships. If the school house was not in the township, there was no board of trustees. The township clerk simply handled transactions with union sections.

Each school section was run by 3 trustees, originally appointed by the township councils. These trustees were selected for numerous reasons, but community duty was the most common. One trustee from a small, northern school section summed it up best: “You served on the board because it was expected of you. All the parents in the community had to do their bit to keep the school running. We all believed in our community and we had to accept certain responsibilities if we wanted to make things work.”

Trustees received no pay, but the secretary-treasurer of the section (appointed by the trustees) was given the princely sum of $25 per year to keep the financial records of the section. Many secretaries carried on for decades in the post; long after their own children graduated the system.

By the 1920s, consolidation began to creep into the school system. Due to issues such as rural depopulation and the growth of villages, many rural sections were cancelled and the students transferred to village schools. Glamorgan was one of the first townships to close the rural one room schools and bus the students to a new facility in Gooderham. The growth of high school numbers also helped consolidation. With the number of school sections dwindling, the province encouraged the cancellation of the trustee system for each school section. By 1940, the individual school trustee system was replaced by township trustees who operated all township schools. The next step was obvious, and in 1960 the township trustee system was abolished in place of the county system, with trustees elected by township to sit on a county board. Today, the system still has elected school trustees, but they sit on district boards that represent large areas. It is a long way from the 3 trustees per school; and also a long way from the community-school spirit of pioneer times.

The board of trustees were charged with the following duties: repairs and maintenance of the school house and facilities, collecting all fees and paying all expenses, equipping the school and students with books and supplies and hiring teachers. The latter was their most important duty, as almost every year they had to engage a new teacher, so great was the turnover. The county board of education provided guidance and inspectors who regularly toured the schools, as well as administering government policy. But it was the trustees who were the guardians of education in the school section. Almost all school sections were served by more than one school house during their history.

There was actually a historical progression of building types over the years. The first schools were built of log and were meant to be set up in a hurry. The settlers used whatever was at hand, and logs fit the bill. After a few years, the log schoolhouses either deteriorated, were burnt or overcrowded. Most replacement schools were of frame construction. In the more prosperous parts of the area, these wood frame schools were replaced by well-built and imposing brick buildings. Brick buildings were common by the 1870s in southern Victoria County, but not common in the less prosperous north as wood frame still ruled. By 1914, almost all schools south of the Kawartha Lakes were brick, but most of the north were frame. Only the principal village schools in the north used expensive brick. It was a sign of affluence and there wasn’t as much affluence in the north!