| Rick Hansen Secondary School | |
| "Never Give Up on Your Dreams" "The End Is Just The Beginning" - Rick Hansen STORM: STEWARDSHIP TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITY RESPONSIVENESS METACURRICULUM |
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| Address | |
| 1150 Dream Crest Road Mississauga, Ontario, L5V 1N6, Canada |
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| Information | |
| School board | Peel District School Board |
| Religious affiliation | Public |
| Superintendent | Carol Speers |
| Area trustee | Ruth Thompson Jeff White Rick Williams |
| Principal | Sandra Wai Dussiaume |
| Vice principal | Rada Petrovic-Lukich Giampiero Del Rizzo Crissa Hill |
| Staff | 163 |
| School type | Public High school |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Language | English |
| Mascot | Stormy |
| Team name | Storm |
| Colours | Maroon, Black, Gold, and Gray
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| Yearbook | School In Motion |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Enrolment | 1973 (September 2009) |
| Homepage | http://rickhansenss.peelschools.org |
Rick Hansen Secondary School (RHSS) is a public high school located in the south-eastern edge of Streetsville, a community in Mississauga, Ontario. Rick Hansen is the home to graduates from Fallingbrook Middle School, Fairwind Senior Public School, and Hazel McCallion Senior Public School. The school opened in 1999, and in 2002, the school expanded with a new wing on the west side of the school, which added 14 classrooms, 2 dance studios, and 2 art rooms. Nearly 2,000 students attend this school.
Many athletic programs are present in the school, and the name of the mascot is Thunder. Their elaborate technology program allows students to major in manufacturing- and robotics-related courses. They also have a successful FIRST Robotics team, known as Theory 6, and many smaller, but still successful, VEX Robotics teams. Other extra-curricular activities include the Drama Council, the Peer Mentors, and DECA.
The school is a sister school to Rick Hansen Secondary School in Abbotsford, British Columbia.
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When the school opened on September 7, 1999, it was named East Credit Secondary School, and it was one of the first schools where the administrative staff helped create the blueprint of the school. It was the first public high school to open in Peel in ten years. Many names of many Canadian icons were suggested for the school, but the Peel District School Board chose Rick Hansen Secondary School. Rick Hansen granted permission to the Peel District School Board to use his name for the school, saying that he was "delighted that your school will be part of my heritage and to carry the history of the Man in Motion tour by being a barrier-free school."[1] The school's architects implemented a wheelchair-friendly and barrier-free design by doing the following:[2][3]
The school was built as Peel's first technically oriented school where students have the ability to work and learn in a 21st century technological environment. There are televisions in every room in the school, and the school possesses more than twelve computer labs. Laptops are used by every teacher to use in planning lessons and teaching. In the first school year, there were only 655 students and 53 staff members in the school. At the time, the school only taught ninth and tenth graders. The first two floors of the school were occupied by the ninth and tenth graders and the third floor was used by elementary school students, due to the fact that the neighboring Swinbourne Public School was still under construction at the time.[4]
Every year, students from Rick Hansen Secondary find new ways of collecting money for the Rick Hansen Foundation. The school collects a small amount of money from late students entering the school after the morning announcements have been completed.[5] Other ways the school collects money is by having a Mad Minute, where Peer Mentors run to every homeroom and collect as much loose change as possible from people's pockets in a short length of time. The school also occasionally hosts many other activities, such as a coin drive, a school walk, pledge sheets, and a wheelchair basketball game at the school's gym.[6]
The school is named after Rick Hansen, an athlete who won all-star awards in five sports when he was paralyzed at the age of 15 after being thrown from the back of a truck. He subsequently became an athlete and an activist for people with spinal cord injuries. Rick Hansen has made many special visits to the school, and his most recent visit was on April 5, 2011 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Man in Motion World Tour. In the event, Hansen announced that a relay will take place to retrace the Canadian segment of the original Man in Motion Tour. The celebration was attended by many notable people, such as Hazel McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga, and David Onley, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.[7] In total, twenty-five medal-bearers, including the school principal and a staff member, were chosen from the school. The Relay made its way through Rick Hansen on November 10, 2011.[8]
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