Woodroffe High School (Ottawa) - History - A Look Back at The First 50 Years

A Look Back At The First 50 Years

Before the Beginning

The school and its surrounding property occupies 19 acres on a crest of land that was purchased by the Collegiate Institute Board of Ottawa from Weldon and Annie Stevenson in 1953 for a price of $20,821. Another $300,000 was spent on site preparation prior to construction of the school.

The school occupies portions of two tracts of land that were deeded by the Crown to the area’s original landowners. One parcel, which totalled 200 acres, was assigned to Clarissa Baker in 1809. The other parcel, 100 acres in size, was assigned to John Hogg in 1824. Other family names that appear among the early landowners in the area are Shouldice, Mitchell, McGee, McEwen, Pinhey, Magee, Cowan, Graham and Fox.

In 1956, there were six high schools in Ottawa. Due to a rapidly-growing urban population, four new schools were built and opened between 1956 and 1960: Ridgemont, Rideau, Laurentian, and Woodroffe became the 10th high school in the system when it opened in 1960. It was also the 5th composite school in Ottawa which combined technical, commercial and academic education in one building. Fisher Park had been the first composite school in the Board, opening in 1950.

In 1960, elementary schools in Ottawa were governed by the Ottawa Public Board of Education, and secondary schools were managed by the Collegiate Institute Board of Ottawa. In 1970, these two merged to create the Ottawa Board of Education. The OBE continued until 1998 when it merged with the Carleton Board of Education to form the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, which remains today.

Construction of the School

The architects that designed the school were Hazelgrove, Lithwick & Lambert. The same firm designed a total of ten high schools in Ottawa, but only Woodroffe and Hillcrest shared a common design. An article in the Ottawa Journal on April 15, 1961 said that the design of the school was “a complete departure from Rideau, Laurentian and Ridgemont high schools”. The article goes on to say “While at present access to the school must be gained by travelling over a quarter mile of muddy road, Woodroffe eventually will be bordered on two sides by the NCC Driveway, affording it the most beautiful setting in the city”.

Construction began in October 1959. Governor General Vanier officially laid the cornerstone on June 21, 1960 at 3:30 pm. A formal invitation card, similar to a wedding invitation, was sent to invitees, and approximately 200 people attended the ceremony.

The school as we know it today was constructed in four main phases. The main body of the school, which included the east and north wings, opened in September 1960 with a construction cost of $1.5 million. At that time, the school had a double gymnasium, cafeteria, mechanical shop, electrical shop, car mechanic shop, drafting room, dress-making room, home economics room, library, four science labs, art room, music room, typing room, staff dining room and 14 standard classrooms.

In September 1961, the second major phase which included the 750-seat auditorium and 25 additional classrooms in the west wing opened. The construction cost for the addition was $600,000. With the completion of the addition in 1961, the school was identical in size to Rideau, Laurentian and Ridgemont.

Two other major structural expansion projects have occurred over the years. The “new” library was opened in its current location for the 1972-73 school year. Prior to then, the library had been located opposite the front office. The other major expansion was the construction of the second gym. This project was completed sometime around the end of the 1970s. Another major change, although it did not coincide with any external structural change, occurred in 1994 when a day care facility was added to the school, occupying space that formerly housed 8 classrooms.

Where Did the Name Woodroffe Come From?

According to a note published in the 1962-63 yearbook, the community of Woodroffe (also spelled Woodroofe and Woodrooffe in early records) was named after the farm of Capt. George W. Baker, an early Ottawa postmaster, magistrate and councillor. Capt. Baker’s country residence included some of the land upon which the school now stands. Records indicate that Capt. Baker named his local farm in honour of the family estate in Ireland. Presumably Capt. Baker and Clarissa Baker, identified as one of the first landowners, were spouses.

The First Year

When the school opened in September 1960, the gymnasium, cafeteria, science labs, typing and art rooms, were not ready for use until later that fall due primarily to an electricians’ strike, so space was at a premium for the first few months.

Jack Merkley was the first Principal at the school. The prior year he had been Vice Principal at Ridgemont High School. In September 1960, 551 students enrolled at Woodroffe. There were 332 students in 10-grade 9 classes, 191 students in 7-grade 10 classes, and 28 students in 1-grade 11 class. The initial plan had been for the first year to include only grade 9 and 10 classes, but it became necessary to form a grade 11 class due to overcrowding at Nepean High School. Most of the students attending Woodroffe came from the Woodroffe-Britannia-Parkway area. In April 1961, Mr. Merkley was quoted in the Journal projecting that enrollment in September 1961 would jump to 1250 due an anticipated huge influx in grade 9 students.

When it opened, Woodroffe sat in an empty field. With no established pathways, students had to navigate gravel, dirt, prickly underbrush, and planks laid across the creek. When it rained, students were often stopped at the doors and had the mud washed off their boots before being allowed to enter the school. Residential development stopped at Mountainview Avenue to the east, at Waterloo Avenue (a street just to the east of Connaught Avenue in Queensway Terrace North that was expropriated to make way for the Ottawa River Parkway) to the west, Carling Avenue to the north, and Parkway Drive to the south. The Queensway was under construction at the time, but was not yet open to traffic. The Ottawa River Parkway was in its final planning stages. Rapid growth was anticipated in the area due to two major, new housing projects planned on either side of the school, one of which is now called Whitehaven and the other being the southern part of present-day Queensway Terrace North.

When the school opened, some parents raised concerns about the safety of students walking to school along Carling Avenue. It was a 4-lane road at the time, but it had no sidewalks and it was in the process of being paved so it was temporarily reduced to a single lane in each direction.

School Behaviour Norms

While the school has never had a mandatory uniform, in the early sixties there was a school kilt that girls were encouraged to wear, and many did. It was an orange, black and white plaid that was ordered and purchased at a shop in Westboro (name may have been Adrian Shoppe). This was normally worn with either an orange, black, or white blouse. There was also a white cardigan sweater with orange arm stripes available for purchase. The sweaters were quite long, almost to the hip line. Girls could not wear sandals. Most wore sneakers or penny loafers. Girls were not allowed to wear slacks to school. The no-slacks rule got relaxed sometime around the end of the 1960s, but well into the 1970s, girls were not permitted to wear jeans while in school.

For the boys, there was no comparable recommended attire. Most of the “in crowd” wore tight beige jeans, madras button down shirts and Converse sneakers. For boys, the bigger issue was hair length. It could fall no longer than the shirt collar, had to be off the ears, and above the eyes. Facial hair was either discouraged or not permitted.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a lot of pressure on institutions like schools to become more liberal in the rules that applied to students. For those of us that attended the school at that time, and as former teacher Garfield Ogilvie recounts in his note Evening Shadows, Mr. Berry was not a big fan of miniskirts or halter tops in the school, and led a sometimes lonely crusade to try and hold to the old ways.

Teachers also had a dress code in the early days. Dresses or skirts with blouses being the norm for women, jackets and ties for men. The code was relaxed for Phys Ed teachers, but if they were leaving the gym to teach a health class, they were expected to change to conform to the code. Mr. Berry also waged his attire battle with female teachers that wore skirts that were too short, or even worse, wanted to wear pants to school. Dress codes were relaxed, women could wear pants and men could leave their ties at home, after the teachers’ strike in 1975.

At the beginning, smoking was cause for expulsion. This became much more relaxed over time, and then more stringent. During the 1970s, there was a Commons Room where senior students could go to smoke and play cards. First this room was located in a dressing room under the auditorium stage, and accessed by an exterior door by the gate leading to the Parkway. Later, the Commons Room moved to the tunnel. For those that wanted to smoke outside, the designated spot was around the steps leading down from the west wing of the school into the courtyard (where the day care is now). Today, smoking is not permitted anywhere on the school property, so congregations are often encountered just outside the gate to the Parkway.

In October 1970, a group of 60 students staged a “sit-out” on the back lawn of the high school. The Ottawa Journal cited this as “the first major open confrontation on an Ottawa secondary school campus”. Police were called at one point as students hurled insults and profanity at their teachers and principal. The students were protesting “inhumane treatment and petty rules”. The ringleader of the protest had been expelled the previous day for failing to obey a school rule to stay inside the school during a study period. Students cited other irritants including rules regarding boys’ hair length, that students had to raise their hands in class to ask to go to the washroom (and were sometimes denied permission), and that a jacket and tie was the dress code for school dance night.

The following text from the Ottawa Journal is amusing now, although it probably was not at the time:

The action started about 1 pm when Mr. Berry emerged from a back door and asked the seated students “What are you doing?”

“Sitting here,” was (the ringleader’s) curt reply.

“How long are you going to sit?” the principal asked.

“Until we get bored,” someone shouted from the rear of the grass-bound group.”

“Then you might as well go home,” Mr. Berry said. “I think I should tell you, you are late for class.”

Mr. Berry chalked the whole episode up to “spring fever” and said any properly run school has to have a timetable and students must stick to it. At Woodroffe the rules say a student has to take a study period in the study hall, not outside.

Later in the Journal article:

Another of the protesters didn’t want to say anthing in the principal’s office. “I’ll only get called down to the office after The Journal leaves, and have my recommendations taken away or something.”

“With marks like yours, do you expect to get any recommendations?” Mr. Greer asked.

Following the office meeting Mr. Greer told the Journal that truancy and vandalism have always been high at Woodroffe partly because the school accepts problem students from other schools.

Yearbooks

The yearbook is the one keepsake from high school days that almost all graduates can still find. When received, they served as a type of diary to exchange notes with classmates. As time has passed, they now serve as a graphic reminder of how good (or different) we looked way back then. A yearbook has been produced for every school year except 1970-71. In the 1971-72 yearbook, Mr. Berry commented “Last year seemed to lack something very important around the school and I’m sure the staff and students will agree that we missed our Wyvern. Because of a large financial loss in the 69-70 edition it was thought advisable to skip a year”. For these lasting mementos, we thank the yearbook committees that over the years have produced them.

The very first edition of the yearbook in 1960-61 was called the Wyvern. This name seems to have stuck until the 2001-02 edition, but it has not been used in recent years. Many of us never knew what the word meant at the time (or have forgotten). The word wyvern (also wivern) is derived the Saxon word wyvere (wivere), which in-turn was derived from an Old French term wivre which meant viper. A wyvern is a legendary, winged, reptilian creature with two legs and a barbed tail often found in medieval heraldry that is regarded as a type of dragon. Wyverns are normally shown with two legs and two wings that may have clawed tips. Some have been known to have no legs. The rest of its appearance can vary, such as appearing with a tail spade or with a serpent-like tail. The wyvern is a frequent mascot, especially in Wales and parts of England. The rivers Wye and Severn run through the English country of Hereford and Worcester. A local radio station in that area is called Wyvern FM. English car company, Vauxhall Motors, had a model called the Wyvern in the 1950s. The wyvern is also the mascot of the Korean Baseball Organization team SK Wyverns, established in 2000.

Facts About the School

As of 2009, the school has a staff complement of about 90: 1 Principal, 2 Vice Principals, 68 teachers, 7 office staff and technicians, 8 in educational support, and 5 custodial staff. There are about 50 classrooms, two gymnasia, an auditorium, and library. Current enrollment is about 850. Outside, the school has a large property that offers four tennis courts, two sports fields, a running track, a volleyball court, picnic areas, and ample green space.

Initially, the school day consisted of 8 periods, each 35 minutes in length, and subjects ran from September to June. In 1972-73, Woodroffe was one of the first high schools in Ottawa (along with Nepean and Champlain) to introduce the semester system. The first semester running from September to January, and the second from February to June. In the first year, only grades 11-13 went on the semester system. In the next year, semestering was added for the junior grades, except for English and Phys Ed. Finally, for the 1974-75 school year, all subjects, in all grades, went on the semester system. Since few high schools offered semestering in the early years, Woodroffe attracted a lot of students from other schools that only had a few credits to complete their diploma, allowing them to finish in January instead of June. At the beginning, there were 5 periods per day, each 60 minutes in length. This changed to 4 periods per day, each 75 minutes in length in about 1980. In the present-day Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, only three high schools are non-semestered: Colonel By, Sir Guy Carleton and Ottawa Technical Learning Centre, the latter two offering special adaptive programs.

The other major change in the structure of the school occurred when Ontario finally eliminated Grade 13. In March 1969, then-Education Minister William Davis had forecast the abolition of Grade 13 from Ontario high schools, however it took 34 years for this to happen. The 2002-03 school year was the last in which Grade 13 (called Ontario Academic Credit or OAC at the end) was offered. This led to the much-publicized double cohort effect on post-secondary institutions the following year.

The school motto is the Latin expression “Floret qui Laborat” which has been variously translated over the years as “He prospers who labours” or “Prosperity comes through labour”, or Mr. Pointen's preferred version, “The person who works hard, succeeds”.

The school newspaper has had a variety of names over the years including Shaibu, Tri W, Tiger Times, Tiger Beat and Tyger.

Mr. Manley composed a school song that was played and sung at school assemblies in the early years of the school. I don’t recall it being played by the early 1970s. These were the lyrics:

Stand up for Woodroffe High School Sing its great name loud and clear Stand up for this is our School This place we hold so dear. Our voice's echo loud and strong As our banners proudly fly Stand up for this is our school song The Song of Woodroffe High.

Student Leaders

School Council provided the formal mechanism by which students could have an influence on the workings of the school, and on the types of extra-curricular activities that were organized for the student body. In order to have a Student Council, individuals had to step forward and offer to be its leaders, and sometimes to subject themselves to an electoral process in order to become Head Girl or Head Boy. Beginning in 1983-84, School Council was headed by Co-Presidents.

Convocation represented the culmination of the high school careers for all those who graduated from Woodroffe. These are mostly happy affairs because they represent accomplish, maturation, and progression to a new stage of life. For most, convocation consisted of walking across the stage to get your diploma, awards if you were so fortunate, pose for a few photos, and bask in the limelight. For one particular group of volunteers, the valedictorians, convocation presented an added stress. These souls had the courage and dedication to write and deliver a speech on the last day of high school.

High school provided the foundation for all of our future lives, no matter what career paths those followed. Woodroffe alumni have gone on to prominence in diverse areas of sports, the arts, and business. A listing of notable alumni is difficult to research, and relies largely on anecdotal information. Additions to this list are encouraged.

Academic Achievement

The first commencement ceremony occurred following the 1961-62 school year, honouring Junior Matriculation and Intermediate graduates. The first grade 13 class graduated from Woodroffe in 1962-63. In the early years, the Principal’s Award went to the graduating student that had contributed the most to the welfare of the school. In 1967-68, the J.H. Merkley Award was first presented in honour of the school’s founding principal. It is unclear if it was the case right from the outset, but by the early 1970s, this recipient was the graduating student with the highest overall grade average. This remained the case until the 1988-89 school year. In 1989-90, the Governor General’s Bronze Academic Award was introduced. Over the period, 1989-2000, both the Merkley and Governor General Awards went to students having the highest average, although they were calculated on slightly different bases. In some years the same person won both awards, and sometimes there were different winners. Beginning in 2000-01, the top graduating student has received the Governor General’s Bronze Academic Award, and the Merkley Award has been presented to a graduating student who achieved high academic standing and who has made a significant contribution to the arts.

In the 1960s, students that had an average exceeding 90% received the Silver Medal. After 1970, this award became known as the OBE Silver Medal, and since 1998, it has been called the OCDSB Silver Medal. Up until 1987-88, it appears as though the medal was awarded to a student in any grade with an average of 90% or higher. After that year, it seems that this was changed and only graduating students with averages above 90% received the medal because there are no more instances of repeat winners.

Sports Achievement

While getting an education is the primary objective in going to school, extracurricular activities play a large role in the education experience. Sport serves to motivate students into attending school, that might otherwise follow other paths. Sport and team performance also serves to build school spirit and pride, and creates comraderie among students that might not normally interact.

Woodroffe has had many successful sports teams and athletes over the years thanks to the efforts and dedication of the many teachers that had the passion to coach and mentor student athletes. A number of these teams have won city and regional championships. Some also went on to excel at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association (OFSAA) championships.

OFSAA championships are limited to senior or varsity teams playing at the Tier 1 level in certain sports. Before 1986, the winner of the league of Ottawa-based schools (public and separate boards) played off against counterpart winners from the Carleton and Upper Ottawa Valley boards, with only one team representing the region at OFSAA. Between 1986 and 1999, this was changed so that the Ottawa winner only competed against the Carleton board winner for that right. This changed again in 1999. Following the amalgamation of the Ottawa and Carleton school boards, teams have competed in the integrated National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association (NCSSAA), with the league champion going directly to OFSAA. In some years, Ottawa has received two entries to OFSAA. On those occasions, the regional runners-up also got to participate in the provincial championships.

School Administration

Getting “sent to the office” is a universal euphemism for being in trouble. If the Principal, or worse, Vice Principal knew you by name that was often a worrisome sign. Many of these men and women had tough exteriors, but we came to know that they were really driven with the best interests of the school, and us, in mind.

Teachers

Over your high school career, you took something like 30 or 35 courses, depending upon whether you were there for Grade 13 or not. That means you probably had 30-35 teachers, maybe a few less because you probably had some for more than one course. You also got to know others through their involvement in sports, band, and special-interest activities. Many of these you will remember; I’m sure quite a few you cannot.