30 years after the tragedy: Colin Macdonald Community School carries on founder’s legacy

But four months after Dundas Montessori School opened, cruel fate intervened.

“It was awful. It was unbelievable. It still makes me want to cry,” says Milne.

Macdonald was driving his two children to Clarksburg near Georgian Bay on Jan. 1, 1994, to drop them off at the home of his former wife.

“There was a little bit of snow in the air when he left, but it got worse,” says Milne. “He was just beyond Hockley Valley when he spun out on a hill. Our little Honda was hit by a big American car. He died instantly.”

He was two days past his 39th birthday.

Macdonald’s son Ben, 11, and daughter Corrina, 13, were seriously injured but they recovered at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

“It was a terrible tragedy for his students — and for me. The parents helped to keep the school going while I got myself back together,” says Milne.

A couple of Montessori teachers, each working part-time, took over the class to finish the school year.

“No one wanted to let the school go,” says Milne. Enrolment doubled the next year and the school moved to St. James Anglican Church in Dundas, eventually outgrowing that space.

The highly-regarded private school became known as the Colin Macdonald Alternative School and is now called Colin Macdonald Community School.

It is currently located on Paradise Road North at the former Westdale Reformed Church, and has a director, seven teachers (five full-time, and two part-time) and 38 students.

On May 4, the school will celebrate its 30th birthday with a fundraising “Ultimate ‘90s Night” event at Main Stage Rehearsal Studios on King Street East. For further information, go to colinmacdonald.ca.

Montessori schools use an educational approach, developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori (1870-1952), that emphasizes child-centred and individualized learning with hands-on activities. Students are encouraged to learn and explore at their own pace under the guidance of specially trained teachers.

Milne says Macdonald “was a total believer in the method, but he did tweak it a bit because he felt Maria was rather rigid in some areas. We called the approach a relaxed Montessori method.”

A Jan. 3, 1994, story in the Spectator — under the headline “Teacher killed in car crash” — said Macdonald “blended environmentalism, teaching and art in what friends called a dynamic life.”

“A performance artist who often painted on stage accompanied by music … Macdonald made his last appearance at Hamilton’s Whole Lot show in October.”

Christine Borsellino, who is the current director of the school, was a close friend of Macdonald.

“Colin loved the arts. He was just so creative. He was kind of a renaissance man. He had his fingers in all kinds of interesting pies,” she said.

He was keenly interested in the environment, something he carried over into his teaching.

In a booklet he wrote for the opening of the school, he outlined his thoughts about the state of the planet: “Without a benevolent sun, oxygen-producing forests, food-producing land and animal diversity, the individual has nothing. It is upon our planetary environment that our greatest life-affirming gifts depend. For the first time in the history of our species, that environment is imminently threatened.

“While we as adults may escape environmental catastrophe in our lifetime, it is highly unlikely that our children will.”

The words ring even truer 30 years later.

Borsellino took over from Milne as director in 2004 after working as a teacher at the school. Milne would go on, in 2006, to open the Pearl Company performance and arts facility on Steven Street in Hamilton with Gary Santucci. The Pearl closed in 2020, although it reopened for a short time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Milne continues to help out as a volunteer at the school. Among other things, she is helping to organize the 30th anniversary celebration.

Borsellino was one of the teachers who filled in for Macdonald in the first year. She was on a maternity leave from a Montessori teaching job at another school at the time. She stayed on at the Macdonald school and has been there ever since.

She says she finds the work rewarding but there have always been struggles to keep the school going.

“We call it the little school that could,” Borsellino says. “We rise to challenges. Although, we would prefer to not have so many.”

COVID was especially difficult with the school having to revert to online teaching.

There have always been financial pressures. Tuition fees of $10,500 to $11,500 per year limit the number of students who can attend. And the school has never been able to find a permanent home. It has changed locations seven times over the years.

Sometimes it has been because of changing student population sizes. The school has had as many as 112 students.

But usually, the school has only managed to negotiate short-term leasing arrangements in buildings that were going through some kind of transition.

That’s the case with the space they are renting today that has a three-year lease, lapsing in July. Borsellino was disappointed to recently learn there is no possibility to renew the lease at Westdale Reformed Church because another church is moving in with other plans for the space.

Borsellino says she is not sure where the school will end up in the fall, but she is hopeful something will come along.

“Put some good energy out there because we need it,” she says.

Hamilton for Beginners

I’ll be making a presentation called “Hamilton for Beginners” at the Head-of-the-Lake Society Friday at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 7) at the Coach House at Dundurn Castle. There will be stories, historical pictures and a few songs about the quirky history of the city. The content is derived from experiences I’ve had doing this column and a Fringe Festival play I wrote and performed in 2019.

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