Future Paul Dwyer High School lands put to use by Oshawa Fire for training new recruits

A pair of houses in north-east Oshawa set for demolition to make way for the ‘new’ Paul Dwyer Catholic High School have been put to good use in the interim by Oshawa Fire Services for training the next crop of firefighters.

Oshawa Fire thanked the board on social media Friday for donating houses for “Recruit Class 96” to utilize for training.

The site, located at Harmony Road and Greenhill Drive in Oshawa’s fast-growing north-east, will eventually become the new home for Dwyer, which has outgrown its existing site at Stevenson and Taunton roads on the other side of the city.

Capital funding of $29.4 million has been approved to build the school, which will house 1,061 students, give or take. Enrollment at Dwyer currently is 981.

The board had to negotiate with three different owners to acquire the land, with the main parcel of land purchased from Metro Ontario Inc. The other two properties at 1761 and 1735 Harmony Rd. N were residential lots owned by two individual owners.

An architect should be in place this fall, with designs complete by next spring and the board hopes to see shovels in the ground by the fall of 2022.

Catholic Board Director Tracy Barill said in a report from April that a timeline for opening the new school is “challenging to predict based on the many moving parts” but the goal is to be open in September 2024.