Riverdale High School (Portland, Oregon)

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Riverdale High School is a high school in Portland, Oregon, United States. The high school is unique in that it is a public school, but students from outside the district must go through an admissions process and pay tuition to attend. ^[1]

[edit] History

Founded in 1996 , the school was established under controversial circumstances. The community of Dunthorpe, which was historically anchored by Riverdale grade school, faced changes in 1991, when Oregon Senate Bill 917 decreed that all school districts should have both primary and secondary schools, and expected smaller school districts like Riverdale to merge. With only one grade school, Riverdale was expected to merge with the Lake Oswego School District to the south. Riverdale chose to keep its independence. The community purchased an old grade school, the former Collins View School in southwest Portland, which was built in the mid 1930s and closed in 1976. While it was being renovated, high school students were bussed to a leased location at Marylhurst University in neighboring West Linn.

[edit] The search for a permanent site

In 2001, controversy continued as the district asked voters to allow a permanent site be built for the school at a location outside of the district's boundaries. This was at a time when the high school had only 100 students, 30 of whom were actually district residents. The school struggled to find a permanent site. After two failed attempts at establishing a permanent location, the school finally found a site, but it was outside the district boundaries. A deal was made with the neighborhood community, Collins View, which controlled such things as the number of parking spaces, the times people could enter and leave the school, and a requirement to build a playground and use the school as a community center for the community. In August 2002, Riverdale High officially opened at the former Collins View site.

In the fall of 2002, Riverdale received the Columbia Montessori School as its permanent site. The school has since been remodeled and added on to. Now Riverdale High School is thriving as a small school excelling in the arts, theater, science, history and law. The school is part of the Coalition of Essential Schools and takes pride in its college prep education. Teaching integrates many subjects, but emphasizes depth of content and requires students to be responsible for their learning. Riverdale and Lincoln High School often top the list on Portland-area annual achievement tests.

[edit] Athletics

Riverdale has the following athletic teams:

Fall:

• Soccer
• Volleyball
• Football

Winter:

• Snowboarding
• Basketball

Spring:

• Lacrosse
• Tennis
• Track and Field

[edit] Academics

Riverdale is a small school of approximately 250 students, and offers no Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) classes, but does offer one college class to seniors, Writing 121. Their honors program also consists of additional assignments as opposed to separate classes. Despite these educational differences, they are regarded as a highly academic school. They have a history of success with mock trial and bridge building (see note), and they also offer academic clubs such as science bowl and the Spanish club.

Riverdale offers unique academic requirements. Going above and beyond the Oregon diploma, they require 4 years each of math, science, art, social science, and English. They also require 2 years of foreign language, 2 years of seminar, and 1 year of PE. Their most individual requirement, however, is the Senior Exhibition, a year-long project required for all seniors. For this project, students must pick an "essential question" which they research and present about at the end of the year. The "essential question" must require an opinion based on research. As part of the research process, the student must contact experts both inside and outside of the school and write a paper on their finding. Past senior exhibition papers can be found and read at Riverdale High School's website.

The graduating class of '09 achieved the highest standard test scores of any high school in Oregon in 2007.

[edit] Clubs and Activities

At Riverdale High School, everyone is given the option of joining one of the multitude of clubs both teacher- and student-led. Some of the clubs include the Outdoor club, a Gay-Straight Alliance, the Community Service club, a D&D club, the Jewish Culture club, and the Snowboarding club. Riverdale also has many members of the National Honor Society.

Other non-athletic activities include bridge building, science bowl, mock trial, and the High-5 quiz show challenge. FIRST Robotics is offered in agreement with Tualatin High School (team 2002), with Riverdale students allowed to join the Tualatin team at no extra charge.

[edit] Riverdale as a Linux pioneer

Riverdale High School uses the Linux operating system on over 100 computers powered by K12LTSP. The school installed new thin-client workstations when it opened in 2002. K12LTSP was developed at Riverdale and was released under the GPL license in 2001. K12LTSP is based on the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) and is now used by schools all over the world. Fittingly, the Riverdale school system counts the children of Linus Torvalds among its students.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Riverdale School District