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Ridgewood Addition Going Up

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By KLINT LOWRY

The Suncoast News

Published: July 11, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - When Ridgewood High students return in August, they will find their school undergoing a two-story, $2.5 million expansion.

Construction workers are laying down the footprint for an eight-room addition, a permanent structure separate from the main school building and located between the gym and baseball field. The classrooms will raise the school's capacity by 200 students.

"Ridgewood is bursting at the seams," said William Hemphill, project coordinator for the Pasco County School District Construction Services and Code Compliance Department.

It's a familiar situation at Ridgewood, which has a history reflective of west Pasco's growth.

Ridgewood opened at 7650 Orchid Lake Road, south of Ridge Road, as a junior high school. From the beginning, district officials planned to turn Ridgewood into what at the time would be west Pasco's third high school.

The transition began in 1983 with the addition of a high school freshman class. During the conversion, a gym was added at the back of the main building and a stadium went up. A weight room and tennis courts also were added.

The population growth that prompted Ridgewood's construction in the first place has not stopped, necessitating frequent additions over the years, mostly in the form of portable classrooms.

"I came in '87 and we probably had four or five portables," Principal Randy Koenigsfeld said.

Today the school has 30 portables located east, west and south of the main building. Most are free-standing, cabinlike structures positioned in clusters. There also are a pair of four-classroom free-standing units.

"This school was built for 1,300 junior high school students; we're up to 2,000," Koenigsfeld said. "If we can manage the flow of students in and out of the building, it just makes it that much more convenient."

That's Assistant Principal Shawn Hohenthaner's summer project: figuring out the master schedule for the entire school. It's a job she equates to putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

"At least 10,000 pieces," Hohenthaner said, and the puzzle needs reworking every year.

Changes in curriculum styles help keep down congestion between classes, as students and teachers now spend much of their days clustered together in "teams."

"That's kind of the way schools are going nowadays," Koenigsfeld said. "They've gotten away from the centralized departments."

Instead, he said, a group of students might have the same English, math, science and social studies teachers, all located near one another. This style is beneficial because the teachers can integrate their respective lessons, especially with specialized programs such as career academies.

Ridgewood officials expect the new building to be used along those lines. To accommodate that strategy, two of the units will be science classrooms. "We have teachers floating from room to room who need science labs," Koenigsfeld said.

Portables are fine for most subjects, he said, but science classes need lab tables and demonstration areas. And with permanent structures comes the luxury of wiring all the classrooms to accommodate the latest technology.

"We can go in there and put projectors in the ceilings and it will be wired for sound, so it won't have to be retrofitted like in the original building," Koenigsfeld said.

The only downside is the annex probably won't be ready for use until February or March, roughly two-thirds of the way through the 2008-09 school year. But it will be a welcome addition, Koenigsfeld said.

With that and a high school planned for the Hudson area in two years, Ridgewood may even be able to shed a few of its portables and have some open spaces again.

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