Out of Bounds

I went to Ridgemont High School in Ottawa. This is not the Ridgemont High of the movie but the real one that actually exists.

Ridgemont High School occupies a building in the shape of a large, 'L'. It has a basement and two floors. There is an elevator. Students are not allowed to use it unless they are in a wheelchair or otherwise handicapped. The basement was largely out of bounds to students. There was a small section at one end of it where there were student lockers and a class room. Beyond that class room stood a sign on a post that said "Students Out Of Bounds."

When I went there the schedule for the day was divided into four periods in the morning and again in the afternoon. Before classes actually started at the beginning of the morning and the afternoon the students of a particular class went to what was called their home room. There, the home room teacher took roll call for the morning and the afternoon and did whatever administrative tasks that needed to be dealt with. The home room period was about ten or fifteen minutes.

Between home room period and each of the classes there was five minutes to get from one class to the next. Each time period began and ended with the school bell. In Grade Twelve the home room for my class was in that class room in the basement. In the morning we would meet in the home room and the next class was in that room, where our teacher, who had specialized in physical education, taught us English.

In the afternoon we met in our home room in the basement next to the out of bounds sign. When the bell rang to change classes we went to our Geography class, which through some kind of brilliant application of logistics and scheduling just happened to be at the other end of the 'L' on the second floor on the other side of the hall. To put it another way, the two class rooms were as far away from each other in the school as the could possibly be.

Do you see where this is going? I think you do. When the bell rang to change classes, all the students went into the narrow hallways of the school and without any rhyme, reason or order to their movement struggled through the crowded hallways to get to their next class before the following bell that sounded the beginning of the class.

In the early fall and in the spring when the weather was nice getting from home room to Geography class was a breeze. We went up the stairs, outside, across the field, back into the building and up the stairs for the class, and all was well in the world.

Come the winter and things changed. In the winter we had no choice but to go into the sea of student bodies moving in every possible direction except possibly for up. The end result of that was that we would start to arrive in the Geography class room after the bell sounded to start the class.

It didn't take very long before this completely pissed off the Geography teacher. When it first happened he was most upset, demanding to know why we were all late for his class.

"Well, sir," one of us explained, "our home room just before we come here is . . ." and we told him about the two rooms being as far apart as possible, and since it was winter we couldn't cross the field inside the 'L'.

After three days of this three times explaining the situation to him, he asked why we couldn't go through the basement. "It's out of bounds, sir."

"Why is it out of bounds?"

"We don't know."

"Well can't you do something about it?"

"We'll ask out home room teacher." Because the home room teacher was our conduit to the school administration and organization. We took the problem to the home room teacher the next day and he said he would look into it. We reported this to the Geography teacher and for the next three days, even though we kept arriving late for class, there was a period of relative peace.

After that three day period of peace, the Geography teacher once again became furious and demanded something be done. We brought it up to our home room teacher the next day. He said, "I got permission for you to go through the out of bounds area in the basement."

Well that was wonderful. When the bell sounded we left the class, walked past the out of bounds sign and then walked freely and comfortably with no other student interference to our movement and arrived at Geography class and took our seats well before the bell to start the class sounded. Everyone was happy and there was peace.

About five days later, as we left the home room class, passed the out of bounds sign and turned the corner we were met by two teachers coming the other way. They looked at us with curiosity and consternation and challenged us.

"What are you doing here? This is area is out of bounds."

Our unofficial spokes person said, "We got permission."

"Oh," said the teacher. "That's alright then."

Three days later in amongst the after class announcements for the day, on the school intercom, there was this, "To all concerned the area in the basement that is out of bounds is not to be entered by any students." The message was that permission had not been given to go there and students were not allowed to go into that part of the basement.

We were very disappointed as we would have to go back to fighting our way through the mass of class changing students and we knew we would be late for Geography class again. Sure enough the very next day, we began arriving at the Geography class room after the bell to start the class. Sure enough the Geography teacher was lividly angry. He demanded to know why we were once again late. I think he probably didn't pay any attention to after class announcements.

We explained that we couldn't go through the basement as the school's administration was enforcing the out of bounds designation for that part of the basement. We went on to explain that under those circumstances we would be late for every Geography class until spring, some four months away. He huffed and puffed but there was nothing we could do.

Three days after that there was an announcement on the school intercom at the end of classes for the day. "The area in the basement that was out of bounds is no longer out of bounds."