Ridgemont High School (Ottawa)

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Ridgemont High School
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Ridgemont High School
Address
Ridgemont High School (Ottawa)
2597 Alta Vista Drive

Ottawa
,
Ontario
,
K1V 7T3

Canada
Coordinates 45°22′34″N75°39′35″W / 45.376035°N 75.659773°W / 45.376035; -75.659773
Information
MottoKnowledge is Power
Founded1958
School board Ottawa Carleton District School Board
SuperintendentNadia Towaij
Area trusteeChris Ellis
AdministratorGinette Roche
PrincipalRichard King
Staff91 (2005)
Grades 9 to 12
Enrollment850 (2005)
LanguageEnglish and French
Campus Suburban
AreaOttawa South
Colour(s) Green, White, Grey    
MascotSpartan
Team nameRidgemont Spartans
Feeder schoolsRoberta Bondar Public School, Alta Vista Public School, Featherston Public School, Elizabeth Park Public School, Blossom Park Public School Sawmill Creek Elementary Public School
Website ridgemonths.ocdsb.ca

Ridgemont High School is an Ottawa-Carleton District School Board secondary school in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The school is located at 2597 Alta Vista Drive in the Alta Vista neighbourhood of Ottawa. It is next door to St. Patrick's High School, a Roman Catholic high school, and Charles Hulse Elementary School, also in the OCDSB.

Contents

History

Work began on Ridgemont in 1957 when Prime Minister John Diefenbaker laid the cornerstone. Under Principal J. B. Speers, the school opened the next year, one of a series of composite schools built by the Ottawa Collegiate Board during the 1950s and 1960s to deal with the baby boom and increasing school attendance. Ridgemont was planned and designed at the same time as Rideau High School and Laurentian High School. Ridgemont opened a year earlier than the other two.

The project generated some controversy as the Collegiate Board presented a plan that included an auditorium, double gym, and a cafeteria. The Ottawa Property Owners association objected to these as expensive and unneeded luxuries, and the mayor Charlotte Whitton agreed. The dispute delayed the construction of the school for some time.

In 1972, Ridgemont High School concert and stage bands produced an album.

Ridgemont is a semestered school offering many programs, such as French immersion, English as a Second Language, ECL (Everyday Community Living), and international languages (Somali, Arabic, Spanish).

Ridgemont derives the basis of its population from the surrounding neighbourhoods of Ottawa South. The Alta Vista, Ledbury, and South Keys areas of Ottawa South all feed into the school. Ridgemont is known for its high ethnic diversity: there are over 40 different languages spoken by the 850 students at the school.

Ridgemont's 50th Anniversary was celebrated on October 5 and 6, 2007, with a reunion of school alumni.

Architecture

It was built at the same time as Laurentian High School and Rideau High School and has the same base design by architects Hazelgrove, Lithwick and Lambert with well-lit efficient circulation, and a large auditoria. The double gymnasium block projected into a large sports field and oval track. [1] For adults, commercial and business classes were offered in the evenings. There are tennis courts, a large parking lot, well equipped science labs, an auto shop, a wood shop, a media lab and a library. There are two storey t-shaped wings for classrooms, with the gym, auditorium and cafeteria in bumped out blocks. The building was constructed of orange-buff brick with contrasting brick in perpendicular bars on the fly over the auditorium stage. At Ridgemont the auditorium stage fly was decorated at the corners in contrasting brick. There were horizontal bands of windows in silver aluminum, which were later retrofitted with tinted glass in brown anodized frames. An entrance forecourt is reached by a circular drive. The main door is through a vestibule set at an angle between a classroom wing and the cafeteria block. The school's most architecturally interesting feature is a smokestack with a heavy fire door at the base for cleaning out the ash and soot. [2]

Notable alumni

See also

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References

Notes

  1. ↑ Urbsite Triplet High
  2. ↑ Urbsite Triplet High
  3. ↑ Profile of Dr. Ian Affleck; www.physics.ubc.ca.
  4. ↑ Jaime Vernon, with notes from Richard Patterson, Tim Morawetz and Greg Simpson,Profile of Colleen Peterson [usurped] . The Canadian Pop Encyclopedia; www.jam.canoe.ca.
  5. ↑ Colleen Peterson MySpace Page; www.myspace.com.
  6. ↑ Tim Wynne Jones Official Website; www.timwynne-jones.com.
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