Pictou Academy

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Pictou Academy (PA) is a secondary school in Pictou, Nova Scotia. It was founded in 1815 by Dr. Thomas McCulloch. Over the years it has been a grammar school, a nonsectarian college that could grant degrees, and today a high school for grades 7–12. The current principal is Starr Pettipas. The Pictou Academy Educational Foundation helps raise funds for the school. The original site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1937 because it marked the start of nonsectarian education in the Maritimes.

In 2017 the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board decided to move Pictou Academy to a building beside the former Dr. Thomas McCulloch Middle School, closing the 1940s building.

A brief history: McCulloch started a grammar school at his home in 1808. After a fire and rebuilding, Pictou Academy was formally founded in 1815, and an act approved its founding in 1816. In 1831 it became the second degree-granting institution in British North America. In 1842 it admitted female students and its college status was removed, making it a grammar school again. By the late 19th century it was a thriving model secondary school.

PA has many sports teams—sometimes more than twenty in a year. The school colors are red and white, the mascot is a Pit bull, and the teams are called the Pictou Academy Pitbulls. Motto: Concordia Salus (Harmony and Good Health). Address: 200 Louise Street, Pictou, NS B0K 1H0.

Enrollment around 156 in 2008.