Sudbury Secondary School will mark 40 years of arts education excellence this fall

Sudbury Secondary School will mark a significant milestone this fall — 40 years of arts education excellence.

A former student, teacher, and now principal at the school, Heather Downey, said she's had the unique privilege of experiencing the Sudbury Secondary School arts program from every perspective.

"I feel like I have a pretty decent historical context of it because I was in one of the first graduating classes," Downey told CBC News.

"I came through as a dance major here and we still have a very similar process and a very similar program."

Downey said the school has the longest and richest legacy of any high school in the area, adding that Sudbury Secondary School has been around since 1909 — "a very long legacy." 

She said, over the decade, students have been coming to the school to "hone their expertise in dance, drama or theatre, vocal music, instrumental music, visual arts, and now we've added other media arts and photography and piano and all kinds of other things."

Downey said students are choosing Sudbury Secondary School "because they find like-minded people. That's first and foremost. And they get to do what they love." 

Noah Carniello is a former student who now performs as their drag persona, Carmen Dior. 

"I had an incredible artistic journey at Sudbury Secondary and it absolutely prepared me and launched me into my professional career in the arts," Carniello said.

"I had been involved in the arts and theatre and music ever since I was young, especially with the Sudbury Theatre Centre growing up. So Sudbury Secondary was always the school I was going to attend. There was never really another option for me, and the arts program was absolutely the driving force for that."

Carniello had high praises for the teachers, saying "they really had a big impact in my life and in my high school experience…They really uplifted us and supported us and, and really prepared us for life in the arts and in this industry, but ultimately for life in general."

'So many great experiences available here'

Stephane Ostrander was a student at Sudbury Secondary School in the late 1990s and is now a media arts teacher at the school.

"There's just so many great experiences available here," Ostrander told CBC Sudbury.

"I never sang in a choir, but being exposed to the choir class and being invited to join choir on some of those music trips gave me a chance to kind of see what that could be. And then I ended up pursuing that afterwards in university and singing in choirs and then coming back here as a teacher to teach vocal music back in 2008."

The 40th anniversary celebrations will run from Sept. 19 to 21, and will bring together alumni, staff, and supporters to commemorate the school's long-standing impact on the region's arts and culture landscape.