PARENTS, COMMUNITY LAUNCH NEW FIGHT TO SAVE RIDEAU HIGH
Rideau High is a small, welcoming school where teachers make a difference in the lives of some of the most vulnerable teenagers in the city.
That’s the message from parents and community organizations who are making their case to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board to save the 60-year-old school on St. Laurent Boulevard. Rideau High is on the chopping block again after narrowly escaping closure eight years ago because of declining enrolment.
Now school board officials describe the situation at Rideau as an educational emergency. Keeping the half-empty school open is not financially viable nor fair to the students, whose course choices are greatly restricted, they say. Staff suggest moving Rideau students to Gloucester High School.
But don’t count Rideau out yet. Trustees will be listening carefully to arguments about how to do right by the students at Rideau, many of whom are refugees or immigrants, of aboriginal, Inuit and Metis background, or come from low-income families. Some Rideau supporters claim, fairly or not, that the school is a target because parents there are less able to mount a lobby campaign to save it.
Groups from the surrounding community have jumped in, too, saying Rideau is an important locale for other services. The school hosts ESL classes for adults and a daycare for their parents, a City of Ottawa daycare, and an OrKidstra program that offers free music lessons for disadvantaged kids from Vanier.
“To lose this, it would be a travesty,” says Sheila Perry, past president of the Overbrook Community Association.
Perry is part of a group looking for “creative solutions” to keep the school open. One such solution might be renting space to the nearby Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre, where the executive director says he’s enthusiastic about the idea.
The trustee for the area, Chris Ellis, has an argument he hopes will be a game-changer. Rideau receives a $310,000 annual provincial grant from a fund that helps schools in needy areas. The money pays for a social worker, a psychologist, a nurse practitioner, after-school activities sponsored by the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, and subsidies for sports and band transportation.
The grant will be lost if Rideau closes, Ellis says. And without those extra services, some of the vulnerable kids will become “collateral damage” and drop out of school, he predicts.
Low enrolment at Rideau isn’t entirely due to changing demographics. Only 20 per cent of the high-school students in the catchment area chose to go there. The rest go to other OCDSB schools or Catholic, French or private schools. That’s partly because Rideau doesn’t offer French immersion.
But it’s also because Rideau still fights a reputation as a school for tough kids not headed for university. The school has worked hard for years to counter that perception, and to lower petty crimes and conflicts at the school, says principal Steven Spidell. For instance, school officials have introduced restorative justice and peer mediation rather than relying on harsh punishments and suspensions for things like minor bullying. They have worked with community and indigenous groups to provide amenities and programs at the school that help make students feel comfortable there, such as a multicultural prayer room and an aboriginal lodge with a smudge room.
“It’s not a tough school,” says Spidell. “This is a place where a lot of people who have tough lives go to school. This school is a safe, stable, caring place.”
The Aboriginal Lodge at Rideau High School includes a comfy bench, Inuit artwork by students and a DreamCatcher. The room is used for meetings and gatherings by students and community groups, and is also a place for students to relax.
Parent Peter Gareau, who lives nearby, says he and his wife listened to rumours that Rideau was a “really rough school,” and switched their older son to the Catholic board so he could attend Immaculata High School instead. But their younger son wanted to attend Rideau, and he’s flourishing there in a Grade 9 class for students with developmental disabilities.
“I tell you, that reputation is not warranted at all,” says Gareau, who’s upset the school may close. “It was so incredibly warm and welcoming.”
Several Rideau students interviewed in the neighbourhood also had nothing but praise. Fayza Idris, a Grade 12 student who transferred to Rideau this year, called it a “nice school, very welcoming.”
“It’s a nice, calming environment compared to other schools I’ve been to,” says Idris, who particularly enjoys the multifaith prayer room, where she can sit quietly. “The teachers really want to help you,” she adds, recounting how one helped her with a glitch on her application for Carleton University.
James Worler, also in Grade 12 and heading to university next year, said he’s “made a lot of memories” at Rideau. When he struggled academically in Grade 9, Worler says older students who were part of a mentoring program at the school gave him advice on homework and how to study effectively. “Everyone was very friendly, very helpful.”
It would be short-sighted to close the school, says Jennifer Moroziuk, chair of the parent council. A wide swath of the city, including fast-growing Vanier, would be left without a public high school, she says.
And busing kids to Gloucester High will make it more difficult for them to participate in after-school activities, she says. Her son A.J., in Grade 10, goes to a leadership training program at a local community centre several times a week. There wouldn’t be time for him to bus from Gloucester High School and make it to the program on time, she said.
Moroziuk says a small school has advantages. “Because there aren’t as many of them, teachers can really get to know the kids.”
But Rideau High can’t offer the range of programs available at other high schools, which board staff say is unfair to the already disadvantaged students there. Rideau students deserve a “firstclass experience,” board director of education Jennifer Adams told a public meeting this fall.
Vulnerable students can be put at further risk if they aren’t offered programs that might offer them more reasons to stay in school, argued trustee Donna Blackburn at one board meeting.
This is a place where a lot of people who have tough lives go to school. This school is a safe, stable, caring place.