“I don't want to go to class today,” complains the tall girl in black tights and a smock top upon arriving at Heydon Park Secondary School.

“All right, Jessica — maybe Mr. Thomas needs some help in the kitchen,” suggests principal Iwona Kurman.

Her ash-blond hair just so, stylish in a grey sweater set with ruffles and dark slacks, Kurman is greeting students in the foyer. This is something she does each morning as the yellow buses roll in just before 9. She knows every student's name — and story.

“Hello miss, I brought my permission form,” one girl chirps as she rushes past.

“Good for you — you don't want to miss White Pine Camp,” Kurman admonishes, referring to the school's popular three-day trip in June.

“My sister needs a TTC ticket to go to a job interview this afternoon. Miss, can I get one?”

“Okay, you see me later,” Kurman says.

As the foyer empties, girls in the school's co-op program gather by the front door for a trip to a nearby seniors' home, where they will read to residents.

But Chantal — a 16-year-old with Down syndrome — is missing.

Kurman nods knowingly. “I'll find her. I'll check the washrooms.”

And so begins another typical day at Toronto's only single-sex public high school.

“In all the talk about a possible boys school, no one seems to realize that we have been here forever,” Kurman says. “And what we do here is very special.”

Heydon Park has existed since 1962 but dates back to 1923, when Toronto's public school board opened two vocational schools — one for girls and another for boys — on the grounds of Huron St. Public School in the Annex.

It is unclear when the boy's school folded. But in 1926, the girl's school moved to the former Anglican Orphan's Home on Dovercourt Rd., south of College St. It was named Edith L. Groves Vocational School for Girls after a former school board trustee who had a passion for helping girls with special needs.

In 1962, the school was rebuilt and renamed Heydon Park Secondary School. It moved to its current D'Arcy St. location near the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2000 when the Dovercourt site closed.

About one-third of the school's 200 students have mild intellectual disabilities, including a dozen girls who have Down syndrome. Autism, Asperger's syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome are other common conditions.

The rest of the student body is made up of girls with average intelligence who are considered “high risk” due to learning disabilities, mental health issues or behaviour problems.

Many come from troubled families and tough neighbourhoods. Three are pregnant, a dozen are Children's Aid Society wards, and some have suffered sexual or emotional abuse and been exposed to violence and even murder in their homes. Many would be bullied, ostracized or just lost in a regular high school — if they attended at all, Kurman says.

Unless a surname is given, all the first names in this story have been changed.

In addition to regular high school credit courses, Heydon Park offers an array of non-credit courses including hospitality, child care and cosmetology. An industrial kitchen teaches food preparation and provides a daily hot lunch for students and staff. All of the girls can attend until they are 21.

The intellectually disabled girls are placed at Heydon Park by the board's special education department. The rest are referred by their elementary or high school.

But some find the school on their own.

Two years ago, three Afghan sisters called Kurman to say their family wouldn't let them attend a co-ed high school and begged her to let them come to Heydon Park.

“They found us on the Internet,” she says. “Of course I let them come.” Kurman suspected one of the sisters was in her mid-20s. “But I knew if I didn't accept them all, I would lose the 15-year-old.”

Later, the CAS became involved when the 15-year-old confided that her family was forcing her to marry a man in the United States whom she didn't know.

Although some are reluctant to attend a girls-only school, most end up embracing it.

“I love it,” says 17-year-old Milena, who is completing her second year. “It's good because there are no guys to distract you so you can get your education over with. It's very laid-back and relaxed and all at your own pace.”

Milena is taking parenting, nutrition, drama and cooking.

After high school she says she'd like to go to university or college to study politics, ultrasound technology or pathology.

Kurman, 51, grew up in Communist Poland where the disabled were shut away in institutions, schools were strictly academic and authoritarian teachers brooked no debate.

She escaped to Fredericton in 1981 and was working on her master's in geology when she discovered a love for teaching — and switched to education. She moved to Toronto in 1988 to look for work.

In 2003, after 15 years of teaching high school science and serving as vice-principal at two schools, Kurman was offered the VP position at Heydon Park. She has been principal for four years.

“Many people warned me against coming here with my academic background,” she says. “But I love it. I just love these girls.

“Teaching at Heydon Park is like being a locksmith,” she continues. “You are constantly designing keys to figure out how to reach these students and keep them engaged.”

But finding resources and giving them the support they need is always a struggle, she says.

“You have to be a good teacher to teach here, because you create your own material,” says Kurman, whose tiny stature and soft accent belie a tough-as-nails demand for excellence in her staff. “You have to have energy, patience and creativity. And I'm very lucky to have this in my staff.”

“When a student tells you to f--- off, you have to be able to accept that student back in the class,” she says. “You can get away with being mediocre in another school. But not here.”

Kurman recounts the story of Amanda.

The troubled teen was sent to the office for answering a question in class with: “Why should I bother to tell you, you f---ing b---ch?”

Kurman asked Amanda why she responded that way.

“I was very angry. You wouldn't understand.”

Kurman pressed ahead. “That's right. I don't understand. So help me. What's going on?”

Amanda began to tell Kurman how she missed her father, who had been deported due to an immigration problem. Kurman listened and related it back to the classroom incident.

“So you aren't angry with your teacher,” Kurman offered.

“I was just angry.”

“But being angry doesn't give you permission to say those things,” Kurman continued.

“I could apologize,” Amanda said, finally.

Kurman: “Yes. You could. Would you like to?”

And so Kurman called the teacher and Amanda apologized. She was back in class the same day.

In any other school, she might face suspension.

“It's continuous counselling — it's being a parent, which I love,” says Kurman, who has a son completing medical school in Poland and a daughter studying biomedical science at the University of Guelph, as well as two step-sons: one a doctor and the other a nuclear medicine technician.

“But it's hard to become a parent at this stage,” she acknowledges. “They have already been hurt so many times.”

There have been some incredible success stories.

One girl had a co-op placement with the security detail at a hospital. During her placement, she observed several job interviews for a vacant position. When the student was asked for her impressions of the candidates, her response showed such powers of observation, the hospital ended up hiring her for the post, Kurman says.

Two years ago, student Krystal Nausbaum, who has Down syndrome, landed a starring role in an ABC made-for-TV movie, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. She has been accepted into Humber College's Community Integration Through Co-operative Education program next fall and hopes to take film and television courses.

A 2009 graduate is playing semi-professional women's hockey and has her eye on a spot on Canada's Olympic team.

Cathy Mallove's 15-year-old daughter, Rebecca Geffen, is thriving at Heydon Park. Rebecca has Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterized by an insatiable appetite and often accompanied by learning, social and motor problems.

She has attended neighbourhood schools in self-contained classes for students with intellectual disabilities since Grade 6. But Mallove was worried about sending her daughter to a mainstream high school.

She chose Heydon Park for the security and sense of community it offers.

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“It's not a prissy girls' school,” says Mallove. “There is complexity about the population. It's the real world. Rebecca is here because she has to live in the world.”

But there's a sense of understanding and solidarity that the real world often lacks.

“Rebecca looks at the high-risk girls and gets them,” Mallove says. In fact, Mallove thinks the “special ed” girls understand their high-risk classmates better than anyone.

“They start out not very friendly, but they are really very friendly,” Rebecca tells her mother. “They don't smile very much, Mom. But they are very smart.”

Heydon Park offers many of these tough girls the chance to be leaders and role models for students like Rebecca, says Mallove.

Where else would they get to be captain of the basketball team? Student council president? Or star of the school show?

But there is heartbreak too.

Back in the principal's office, Kurman prepares for a parent meeting.

The student functions at the Grade 1 or 2 level. In addition, she is autistic and cries every day.

“It's very difficult when parents can't accept their daughter's limitations,” says Kurman. “It's very stressful for the student when their parents insist on enrolling them in credit courses when it's just not appropriate. This is a girl who thrives in the non-credit courses. It's very sad to see . . . ”

Mallove understands.

“When parents hear their son or daughter has a disability, it's a loss,” she says. “And it continues to be a loss. Many parents and kids haven't dealt with that loss.

“But once you let go of the kid that you thought you were going to have, it's quite liberating. For some parents, moving their daughter into a school for difficult kids is a leap.”

Mallove, who is chair of Heydon Park's parent council, says the differences extend to the parents, too. There are the generally well-educated, middle- and upper-middle class parents dealing disabled children. And there are the parents living in poverty, violence and disadvantage struggling to handle difficult children.

Mallove recalls the weeks she spent with Rebecca in the neonatal ICU ward next to many such parents with their preemies and underweight newborns.

“I watched as these babies were discharged to homes with no food and no social service support . . . Then they show up in the school system.”

Heydon Park tries to bridge that divide every day.

“When you grow up in a middle-class home, disability is the only problem,” Kurman says. “Both parents are educated. There is structure, support. But that's just what these other girls lack. It's what we try to provide.”

At lunchtime, Kurman stops in hospitality teacher Mario Thomas' kitchen to grab a plate of lasagna and salad the girls have made.

“How are you doing Jessica?” Kurman asks the at-risk girl, who didn't want to go to class this morning.

“Great, miss,” she answers, stirring a pot of simmering tomato sauce. “You're going to love the lasagna.”

“I'm sure I will.”

In the gym, Suzanna, a girl with Down syndrome, is breakdancing to the soundtrack of High School Musical, playing through her iPod headphones.

Her eyes light up when she sees Kurman. “This is for you Miss Kurman. Watch.”

Kurman waves her arms in the air and shakes her hips in encouragement as Suzanna boogies with abandon.

Across the street, a 16-year-old who is already a mother to a 2-year-old boy smokes with her friends. The girl's mother cares for the boy while she is in school.

Kurman tells them it is not healthy to smoke.

“Well, miss, at least it's not weed,” one of them offers.

“Yes, well, there's that,” Kurman says, not missing a beat as she summons them back to class.

One girl who lives in a group home went missing for two months last spring. Police eventually found her outside Toronto and brought her back. Kurman believes the student was the victim of a sexual predator. She shudders.

Another student was involved in a fight outside the school. She assaulted a girl with a broken bottle and was arrested. But she's back in school and working on her anger issues.

At the end of the day school social worker Irene Au-Yeung arrives to take Juliana to Surrey Place children's mental health centre for a psycho-educational assessment. The girl has already missed two appointments.

“I'm driving her there,” Au-Yeung says. “Otherwise, she wouldn't go.”

Au-Yeung believes the 19-year-old may have an intellectual disability. A diagnosis will give her access to an income through the Ontario Disability Support Plan, supportive housing and an adult protective services worker when she leaves Heydon Park.

“This is not just a school, this is a safe place,” Au-Yeung says. “Here they get attention, they learn, they get food, bus tickets, parenting, social interaction.”

Au-Yeung can't imagine what would happen to Juliana and many other girls without Heydon Park.

“They may not ever go to class,” she says, “but I'm glad they are here.”

Kurman is glad too.

“Many of these girls travel two hours every morning to come here,” she says. “There should be a school like this in every corner of the city. And the boys should get one too.”