I attended an arts school in Mississauga (Cawthra Park) for Visual Arts. I can't imagine what my life would be like today had I not. I went on to get a degree in design and now run my own business, 15 years later. I still think of things I learned at Cawthra and consider them in the conceptualization of projects. In many ways, they provided a more rounded view of creative work than my university did. It was invaluable to receive a focused and disciplined arts based education at that stage of my life. I would have been considerably more miserable as a teenager in a more typical school. I even met my life partner at Cawthra - he I and discussed after reading this how much worse our lives could have been without the opportunity to apply there and get out of our local schools. Neither of our families would have been able to pay for a similar private education experience - particularly not his, as recent immigrants at the time. Increase access to schools like this. Don't take them away.