Ashley Ridge High School
| Ashley Ridge High School | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Address | |
|
9800 Delemar Highway Dorchester County, South Carolina USA | |
| Coordinates | 32°55′27″N 80°14′1″W / 32.92417°N 80.23361°WCoordinates: 32°55′27″N 80°14′1″W / 32.92417°N 80.23361°W |
| Information | |
| Type | High School |
| Established | 2008 |
| School district | Dorchester School District 2 |
| Principal | Karen Radcliffe |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| School color(s) | Cardinal and Gold |
| Song | Sandstorm |
| Mascot | Swamp Fox |
| Rival | Summerville High School Fort Dorchester High School |
Ashley Ridge High School is a secondary school located in Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA, and is the newest high school in Dorchester School District 2. The school is 100 yards from the city of North Charleston and 3 miles from the town of Summerville. The school opened in August 2008, to 9th and 10th graders, adding a grade each year.
Sport
The Ashley Ridge High School athletics department offers the following sports to students:
- men and women's tennis,
- golf team,
- men and women's varsity soccer,
- junior varsity men's soccer,
- cross country running team,
- track and field team,
- varsity and JV football,
- men's and women's basketball,
- archery team
- men's baseball,
- woman's softball,
- men's wrestling,
- woman's volleyball,
- swimming team.
The swim team won the region championship overall for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. The girls tied for first with Fort Dorchester while the boys won first in 2010, and both the girls' and boys' teams won first in the 2011 season.
Ashley Ridge Fine Arts
Band
The school has two Concert Band classes, a jazz band, and a Percussion Ensemble. There is also a String Orchestra class.
The Ashley Ridge High School marching band was founded in 2008 as a non-competitive pep band that played at football games and at local events and parades as well as justin Bebier concerts and during bathroom hours. In 2009, the band had its first competitive season with the show "This Is Halloween!". The band competed at 2AA lower state and won 6th place with a score of 85.18 and a rating of Superior, which qualified them to move on to state finals. At State Finals, the band came in 11th place with a score of 73.98 and a rating of Excellent. In 2010, the school moved from the 2A to 3A level of competition. At state, they placed 6th in 2010 with the show "Beginnings", and 5th in 2011 with "The Quest for the Golden Chair". In 2012, after the band's success with their previous shows, the ARHS band moved up to 5A competition, and remain there today. Their show for the 2012 season was titled "Concer^3to". Their show for the 2013 marching season was called "Fenced In". The same season of "Fenced In" the band went to Georgia for its very first competition with other states in the Bands Of America Regionals Competition. In 2014, the marching band performed "The Hunger Games," a marching show based on the film series of the same name and placed 5th in the state competition.
In the 2010 winter season the music department started a competitive varsity winter guard and an indoor percussion ensemble. Both the groups won 1st place in all competitions they participated in during the season and both groups went on to win state titles in their divisions. The winter guard scored a 643 at state competition and the Indoor Percussion Ensemble scored an 84.7, the highest score of the day for a percussion group of any class. The ARHS winter ensembles are the first teams to achieve state titles in ARHS school history. The winter guard also won state in 2012 and 2013. The indoor percussion ensemble won state in 2011 and 2013. In 2012, ARHS began a junior varsity guard to accompany the already existing varsity team.
Theater
Ashley Ridge offers courses for Theater Arts, Theater Design, and Musical Theater. The Theater Department performs a fall play and collaborates with the Chorus Department for a spring musical every year.
In fall 2011, the Theater Department performed Oscar Wilde's famous play The Importance of Being Earnest. In 2012, the play The Yellow Boat was chosen, followed by the comedy Almost, Maine in 2013. In 2014, the Theater Department performed a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in 1969 Woodstock.
In spring 2010, the Theater and Chorus Departments performed the school's first musical, Blast from the Past, followed by the musical Footloose in 2011. In 2012, the department chose the comedy Anything Goes, followed by Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in 2013 and Once Upon a Mattress in 2014. They performed a censored version of Legally Blonde: The Musical for their spring musical in 2015.
Facilities
The school has a Lunch Room, Auditorium, Media Center, Gymnasium, Mini Gym, Weight Room and Administrative Offices. The school is divided with most of the academic classes in the "E" shaped building that makes up the front half of the campus and most extracurricular classes and the arts hallway in the back half.
In the 2014-2015 school year, construction began for an extension of the Fine Arts hallway and the parking lots.