Doan's Hollow Public School
| Doan's Hollow Public School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
|
244-484 St John's Rd E Simcoe, Ontario, N3Y 4K2 Canada |
|
| Coordinates | 42°48′04″N 80°14′41″W / 42.80116°N 80.24482°WCoordinates: 42°48′04″N 80°14′41″W / 42.80116°N 80.24482°W |
| Information | |
| School type | Public elementary school |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Secular |
| School board | Norfolk Board of Education |
| Grades | 1-8 |
| Enrollment | 35 (1939) |
| Language | English |
Doan's Hollow Public School is a defunct public elementary school that existed from the early 20th century until c. 1980.
Due to its status as one of the first two schools that taught the mentally retarded, it was considered to be a "pioneer school" for the disabled population of Norfolk County. Special education programs were eventually introduced to the other elementary schools in Norfolk County, Ontario, Canada that allowed children to attend schools that were closer to their homes. Doan's Hollow Public School was a feeder school to Simcoe Composite School during its years of operation although it also shared close proximity to Port Dover Composite School (when it first opened in 1962).
Until the other schools were green-lighted to obtain special education programs from the Ontario government, this school and the Simcoe Lions School in Simcoe to the north were the only schools that taught people with special needs. All the other schools would turn away the mentally challenged; parents were forced to either have the child become institutionalized, attempt to home-school their child, or send him/her to Doan's Hollow for his/her basic educational needs. However, even Doan's Hollow Public School and the Simcoe Lions School were forced to turn away people with Down syndrome and epilepsy in the early years of the special education pilot program. Medical research at that time had declared them to be untrainable and this theory would not be reversed until sometime after the 1970s.
When the government ordered integration of the mentally challenged children into the other public schools, Doan's Hollow reached a sharp decline in the number of new students. Eventually, the Norfolk Board of Education was forced to shut down this school due to modernization reasons. It started out as a one room schoolhouse but eventually become a centralized school (with the one-room schoolhouse becoming a portable). Doan's Hollow Public School was located northwest of Port Dover within walking distance to the Doan's Hollow Cemetery. The declining enrollment problem faced by the school board was also compounded further with the need to eradicate one room schoolhouses; they became "antiquated forms of education" by the 1970s. In order to divert funding to the modern school structure that had different rooms for each grade, all the one-room schoolhouses were forced to be closed in Norfolk County during that era.
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