History
Work began on Ridgemont in 1957 when Prime Minister John Diefenbaker laid the cornerstone. 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.
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 is twinned with Bokoro High School, Butha-Buthe, Lesotho. This twinning is helped by the organization Help Lesotho and aims to promote literacy.
Ridgemont's 50th Anniversary was celebrated on October 5 and 6, 2007, with a reunion of school alumni.
Read more about this topic: Ridgemont High School (Ottawa)
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