Fern Ridge High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**Fern Ridge High School**
Established	1992
School type	Public
Principal	Desi Kirchhofer
Students	Maximum of 100 (as of Year 2005)
Grades	9–12
Operated by	Parkway School District
Location	13157 N. Olive Spur Road Creve Coeur, St. Louis County, MO, USA
Website	http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/fern/

Fern Ridge High School is a non-traditional high school in Creve Coeur, St. Louis County, Missouri. The school's motto is "Because it matters."

The Parkway School District operates the alternative high school and ensures that individual attention is provided by limiting enrollment to a maximum of 100 students. Students must choose to come to Fern Ridge. They cannot be sent by their parents, the court system, or district officials. In their applications and interviews for admission, prospective students must demonstrate needs that can't be met at a regular school. Every student is assigned a mentor, with each faculty member acting as a mentor to about ten students (this group is referred to as a "huddle").

1 Student life
2 The Science Room Rabbit
3 Philosophy
4 External links

[edit] Student life

On every Friday, the school has a Blow-Pop assembly. During this assembly, each teacher recognizes 4 or 5 students who have done something such as achieved a big goal, received a passing grade. The student of the week is also introduced. The student of the week gets to take any staff/faculty member out to lunch at an area restaurant. The student also gets their picture put on the wall near the office and gets money for one free soda from the soda vending machine everyday for the next week. Another thing the school does is instead of ringing a bell to signal the beginning and end of class, the secretary plays music over the loudspeaker (A bell was recently installed outside of the school to get all students who are outdoors to come in.) The school also has two trips a year that are community service. The students sign-up to volunteer at a certain site and then go to that site for about 1.5 hours. The students at the school also have off-campus lunch privileges if their parents permit this (The school does check to make sure they are permitted to.) They can go off-campus and pick up lunch at an area restaurant as long as they are back by the end of lunch. One down-side of Fern Ridge is that there are not as many elective choices as at the districts four traditional high schools because the school is so small and there aren't as many teachers as that at a regular high school.

[edit] The Science Room Rabbit

The school's science teacher has a rabbit that was given to her from a former student. The rabbit's name was changed from Floppy to Ephraim Einstein Pricilla Darwin, usually just said as "Ephraim," upon assuming the rabbit was male. On November 15, 2006, it was discovered that the rabbit is a female and the name was changed to Madame Curie.

[edit] Philosophy

The school bases its approach on constructivism, which is founded on the premise that learning is initiated and directed by the student, not the teacher. The school also uses Multiple Intelligences, a psychological and educational theory.