The Ontario School for the Deaf

Commemoration

In 1869, at the urging of John B. McGann, a pioneer educator of the hearing imparired, the Ontario government sanctioned the establishment of the first provincial school for deaf children.  A residential institution combining elementary school instruction with vocational training, the Ontario Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb was officially opened in October 1870.  Increasing enrolment during the following decades led to steady expansion and improvement of facilities.  When curricula were revised and advanced academic instruction introduced during the tenure of Dr. Charles B. Coughlin (1906-26), the school gained wide recognition for its contribution to special education.  Renamed the Ontario School for the Deaf in 1913, it became The Sir James Whitney School in 1974 in honour of Ontario’s sixth prime minister.