View of Bishop Allen's towers on the southern side.
The school was opened in October 1963.[2] During a period of reorganization of the Catholic school boards after the extension of full funding to Catholic secondary school, Kingsmill was one of three schools to be declared surplus by the Etobicoke Board of Education in June 1988 because of low enrolment and was transferred to the Metropolitan Separate School Board on July 1, 1988 which reopened the school a year later in September 1989 as Bishop Allen Academy. The original school was composed of 135 students under its founding principal Pat Gravelle.[citation needed] The area had previously been served by Etobicoke's first Catholic secondary schools in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish; Michael Power school for boys and St. Joseph's, Islington for girls which, having combined, moved from the area in the 1990s. Before it opened, it was used at one point as the temporary home of De La Salle College for its 850 students in early 1989 because of the flood caused by student vandalism.[3]
The school is named after Bishop Francis Allen, an auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Toronto and former pastor of local Etobicoke Parish Our Lady of Sorrows.[4] Allen was instrumental, together with fellow Auxiliary Bishop Francis Marocco and Archbishop Philip Pocock, in the Archdiocese of Toronto's 1960s campaign to establish and enlarge Catholic secondary schools in the archdiocese.
With the former Kingsmill building built just for 717 students, the school has 30 portables on site to handle the growing student population. In 2008, health concerns about portables that contained mould forced Grade 10 students to relocate to the former St. Peter (now Monsignor Fraser College Annex) for one semester. The board installed three computer labs on that site.[5]
The school is currently in a process of reconstruction with a replacement three-storey high school building. In November 2024, the TCDSB rejected the proposal to relocate its student body to the former Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy, which was acquired a month prior.[6] Starting in the 2026-27 school year, the school will move to the former Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School (originally Keiller Mackay Collegiate Institute) for the duration of rebuilding as the former Kingsmill campus is expected to be demolished.[7]
Notable alumni
Jason Agnew, television producer, host, radio personality, and writer[8]
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