Oak Ridge High School (Oak Ridge, Tennessee)

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Oak Ridge High School is the public high school for Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was established in 1943 to educate the children of Manhattan Project workers. It currently has about 1500 students. Since 1995, it has educated students in grades 9 through 12. Currently, the school is undergoing major reconstruction; over the course of the next several years, most of the old buildings will be torn down and replaced as part of a multi-million dollar plan.

Oak Ridge High School

Established	1943
Type	Public secondary
Principal	Chuck Carringer (interim)
Students	1,500
Grades	9–12
Location	Oak Ridge, Tennessee USA
Mascot	Wildcats
Newspaper	The Oak Leaf
Website	orhs.ortn.edu

The mascot of Oak Ridge High is the wildcat. The Oak Ridge Wildcats football team were mythical national champions for 1958, and have won eight state championships.

Newsweek ranks Oak Ridge High School 465th on its 2006 list of the United States' 1200 best public high schools.[1]

Oak Ridge High School gained notoriety in November 2005 when former principal Becky Ervin censored the school's student newspaper, the Oak Leaf. The November issue originally contained an article with information on birth control and another with photographs of students' tattoos. Though the paper had already been printed, Principal Ervin attempted to confiscate all 1800 copies. The newspaper's staff, with the help of the Student Press Law Center, brought the controversy national attention. [2]

On April 10, Oak Ridge High School was one of the recipients of the Jefferson Muzzle Award [3] for free speech and first-amendment violations in the United States.

A week later, Ervin was released from her position as principal and temporarily replaced with the vice-principal, Chuck Carringer, while the search for a new principal is underway. No reason was given by administrators for their failure to renew Ervin's contract. [4]

For the second year in a row, three seniors from ORHS have attained national finalist status in the 2006-07 Siemens Competition. During the first week of December, they will fly to New York city for several days of celebrity status and the chance to split a scholarship worth up to $100,000 (minimum $10,000 per team). In 2005, Oak Ridge sent another group of three seniors to the national finals, where they finished fourth; in April, 2006, another senior tied for first place in the Young Epidemiology Scholars Competition sponsored by the College Board, and still another received a smaller scholarship. Oak Ridge is also nationally famous for its consistent performance in Science Olympiad; a team from ORHS has made it to nationals for more than a dozen years running. Students from Oak Ridge also traditionally perform well on the American Math Competition exams.