Homes for Sale Near Laurel Heights Secondary School

Laurel Heights Secondary School is a Grade 9 to 12 public high school run by the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB). It sits at 650 Laurelwood Drive, on the corner of Erbsville Road, in the Laurelwood neighbourhood of northwest Waterloo. It opened in 2004 as Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School and has the highest Fraser Institute rating of any high school in Kitchener-Waterloo. Here is what families should know before buying nearby.

About Laurel Heights

The school opened in September 2004. A renaming committee formed in November 2021, because the old name had caused pain and harm to Indigenous communities, and trustees approved Laurel Heights on March 21, 2022. The new name points to the neighbourhood and nearby Laurel Creek. Its teams are the Hurricanes.

• Advanced Placement (AP): the current course list includes Grade 12 AP Chemistry and AP Physics, and the school runs an AP Math program. AP is not a magnet program, so only students who live in the Laurel Heights boundary can enrol. The Grade 9 Pre-AP classes the school once offered have ended now that Grade 9 is de-streamed.
• Specialist High Skills Majors (SHSM): five, in Arts and Culture, Business, Information and Communications Technology, Manufacturing and, new in 2026, Sports.
• Fast Forward: a magnet program, for Waterloo, Wilmot and Woolwich, for students who have struggled with reading, writing and math for several years. It leads to a high school diploma with a focus on getting ready for work. It is a support program, not an enriched one.
• Co-op and apprenticeships: co-operative education and the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP).
• Music: at the 2026 KW Kiwanis Music Festival, all seven of the school’s ensembles were invited to the provincial festival. The Senior Concert Band was named top concert band and the Jazz Combo top jazz combo. In Grade 12, music students can focus on instrumental jazz.
• French: there is no French Immersion. WRDSB high school Immersion runs at KCI and Galt CI, and Extended French at Waterloo CI and a few other schools.

How Laurel Heights Rates

In the Fraser Institute’s latest Report Card on Ontario’s Secondary Schools (the 2025 report, using 2023-2024 results), Laurel Heights is rated 8.7 out of 10, the highest of any high school in Kitchener-Waterloo. Next came École secondaire David-Saint-Jacques at 8.4 and St. David CSS at 8.0, while Waterloo CI scored 6.2.

The rating rests mainly on provincial test results. It says little about the arts, sports or support programs, so treat it as one measure among many and visit the school if you can.

Which Neighbourhoods Feed Into Laurel Heights?

The school sits in Laurelwood, with Columbia Forest and Clair Hills just to the south. Nearby WRDSB elementary schools include Laurelwood PS (JK to Grade 8), Abraham Erb PS (JK to Grade 6, whose students move to Laurelwood for Grades 7 and 8), Vista Hills PS and Edna Staebler PS. The school does not publish a feeder list or a zone by neighbourhood, and boundaries follow streets, so a nearby home is not always in the zone.

To check an address, use the School Eligibility tool from Student Transportation Services of Waterloo Region at bpweb.stswr.ca. It also shows whether a student qualifies for a bus. To register, the school asks for proof of address, such as a utility or property tax bill, a lease or an accepted offer to purchase.

Students from outside the boundary can apply to the Fast Forward program, but not to AP Math. The board’s West Waterloo Boundary Review, which started in September 2026, covers four nearby elementary schools (Abraham Erb, Edna Staebler, Laurelwood and Vista Hills), and any change would take effect in September 2027. The review does not name Laurel Heights, but boundaries do change, so confirm the address with the board before you make an offer.

Homes Near Laurel Heights

In the MLS district that includes Laurelwood (441 Erbsville/Laurelwood), where the school sits, the median sale price for a detached home was $975,000 over the 12 months to September 2026, based on George’s analysis of ITSO MLS sales. Townhouses had a median of $695,000. Most homes are detached two-storey houses built from the mid-1990s on.

Just south, in the MLS district that includes Columbia Forest and Clair Hills (443 Columbia Forest/Clair Hills), the detached median was $940,000 and the townhouse median $648,000. For comparison, the detached median for all of Waterloo was $859,000. See the full neighbourhood price table or browse homes in top school districts.

Is Laurel Heights a Good Fit for Your Family?

Laurel Heights suits families who want a public high school with strong test results, senior AP courses, a choice of five SHSMs and a busy music program, in a newer family neighbourhood next to Laurel Creek Conservation Area.

The trade-offs are worth knowing. Homes in the districts around the school cost well above the Waterloo median. There is no French Immersion, so an Immersion student would need to go to KCI or Galt CI. AP is open only to students in the boundary, and the zone follows streets, so the exact address matters. With new neighbourhoods planned to the north and west, enrolment and boundaries may keep shifting.

To compare schools, see my guide to high schools in Kitchener-Waterloo. If you’d like help finding a home in the Laurel Heights zone, book a free call and we’ll talk it through.

Originally written by Will Kummer for WRX Property Group and fully updated by George Dmitrovic in October 2026.

Neighbourhoods Zoned for Laurel Heights

• Homes for sale in Laurelwood
• Homes for sale in Beechwood
• Homes for sale in Columbia Forest