Ridgemont High School is an

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB, known as English-language Public District School Board No. 25 prior to 1999) refers to both the institution responsible for the operation of all English public schools in the city of Ottawa, Ont ...

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

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. The school is located at 2597 Alta Vista Drive in the

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neighbourhood of Ottawa. It is next door to St. Patrick's High School, a

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high school, and Charles Hulse Elementary School, also in the OCDSB.

History

Work began on Ridgemont in 1957 when

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

John Diefenbaker John George Diefenbaker (September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 an ...

laid the

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. 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

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and increasing school attendance. Ridgemont was planned and designed at the same time as Rideau High School and

Laurentian High School Laurentian High School was a high school in the Central Park neighbourhood of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The school opened in 1958 and provided education to grade 9 through 12 (and 13 from 1961 to 200) through an unsemestered curriculum as establishe ...

. 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 Charlotte Elizabeth Whitton (March 8, 1896 – January 25, 1975) was a Canadian feminist and mayor of Ottawa. She was the first woman mayor of a major city in Canada, serving from 1951 to 1956 and again from 1960 to 1964. Whitton was a Canadi ...

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,

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, ECL (Everyday Community Living), and international languages ( Somali,

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). 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

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. 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.

Notable alumni

Ian Affleck Ian Keith Affleck (July 2, 1952 – October 4, 2024) was a Canadian physicist specializing in condensed matter physics. He was Killam University Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia. Life and career Ian ...

(1971), Professor,

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and

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University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

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(1977),

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centre for

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and

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, Canadian stage and television actor, most notably for his role in the

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, award-winning blues singer *

Julie Nesrallah Julie Nesrallah is a Canadian mezzo-soprano and radio host. Her past operatic roles include Isabella in ''L'italiana in Algeri'', the Composer in ''Ariadne auf Naxos'', Suzuki in ''Madama Butterfly'', Maddalena in ''Rigoletto'', Cherubino in ''The ...

(1987) Opera Singer *

Colleen Peterson Colleen Susan Peterson (November 14, 1950 – October 9, 1996) was a Canadian country and folk singer, who performed both as a solo artist and as a member of the band Quartette. Career Peterson began performing in coffeehouses in Ottawa in 196 ...

(1950–1996), member of 3's a Crowd, later notable solo Canadian singer-songwriter and member of Quartette; did not graduate. *

Tim Wynne-Jones Tim Wynne-Jones, (born 12 August 1948) is an English–Canadian author of children's literature, including picture books and novels for children and young adults, novels for adults, radio dramas, songs for the CBC/Jim Henson production ''Fraggl ...

(1967), multi award-winning author of children's literature.Tim Wynne Jones Official Website
www.timwynne-jones.com.

References

*Keith, Janet. ''The Collegiate Institute Board of Ottawa: A Short History, 1843-1969.'' Ottawa: Kent, 1969.

Notes

External links