Following overcapacity issues at Brother Edmund Rice Catholic Secondary School,[2] Brother Edmund Rice Annex was established within the building of J.J. McGrand Catholic Elementary School in 1982, positioning itself in the quiet neighbourhood of Dufferin Grove. In its initial year, one hundred and fifty ninth graders occupied one floor of the latter's building.[1]
In 1984, following the closing of J.J. McGrand and the dispersion of its staff and students to neighbouring separate elementary schools, the Faithful Companions of Jesus formally established St. Mary's Catholic Secondary School, achieving an initial enrolment of four hundred and fifty students.[1]
Following a period of reorganization of the Metropolitan Separate School Board between 1998 and 1999, St. Mary's became part of the renamed Toronto Catholic District School Board.
In June 2001, Brother Edmund Rice closed, resulting in St. Mary's accepting and integrating fifty students from its original founding school within its student body.[1]
In 2014, St. Mary's began to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, serving as the TCDSB's central International Baccalaureate World School. Two years later, in 2016, the school was renamed by the TCDSB to St. Mary Catholic Academy, reflecting its new heightened pursuit of academia.[3]
As of 2023, St. Mary Catholic Academy is the only anglophone high school remaining in the Dufferin Grove neighbourhood following the closure of Brocktown High School in 1995 and Bloor Collegiate Institute in 2021.
Fraser Institute ranking
The Fraser Institute's 2019 report on St. Mary Catholic Academy gave it an overall grade of 6.4, ranking it at 352 of 739 secondary schools in Ontario. St. Mary's rating for the five most recent years is as follows: 6.2 in 2015, 5.1 in 2016, 6.2 in 2017, 5.2 in 2018, and 6.4 in 2019.[4]
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