Fifty years ago this month, Peel’s public and Catholic school boards each met for the first time. The year was transformational across the province, and dubbed Ontario’s most significant change in public education for a century by Bill Davis.

Ontario began providing grants for schools in 1816, and by 1829, 11 “common schools” served the area now known as Mississauga. (A 12th schoolhouse operated on the Credit Indian Reserve, for the local Mississauga peoples.) There were more than 84 one-room schoolhouses in Peel County, according to a recent book by the Friends of the Old Britannia Schoolhouse, each of which had its own set of trustees.

With the population booming after the Second World War schools started feeling the crunch. In 1952, all the schools south of Eglinton Street were collected into the South Peel Board of Education. Even with this sort of merger the education system was still overwhelming for the province to administer when all of Ontario was considered.

Davis’ Ministry of Education moved to shrink Ontario’s 1,500 school boards to just 100, aligned with the county governments. With education taking close to 50 per cent of the provincial budget, it was time for reform. The move was partly to create equality in education, so that rural children would have the same opportunities as those in richer urban areas.

The Mississauga, Toronto Gore, Streetsville, Port Credit, Chinguacousy Township, Brampton, Caledon Township public school boards, and the Central Peel District High School Board were all wound up in 1968, to be merged into the new Peel County Board of Education.

On Dec. 9, 1968, temporary board chair H.H. Rutherford hosted an inaugural meeting at the County of Peel council chambers, now a classroom at the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives.

Davis spoke at the meeting of the new school board, urging trustees to get more involved. He also asked trustees to keep watch on the size of board overhead, student-teacher ratios and the cost of construction. The meeting saw the election of Glenn Grice, the former chair of the Mississauga board.

Edward LeMay, a corporate purchasing agent, was elected the first chair of the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board. The Catholic board was created from eight different boards.

Few records of the old school boards survived, but all of them are now at the Region of Peel Archives, at PAMA. The Archives also has an assortment of records from individual schools.

Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) is located at 9 Wellington St. E, Brampton, and parking is available at any of the nearby parking garages. For more information, visit pama.peelregion.ca.