Rebuilt Ribault spurs renewed Trojan pride on Northside

Rachel Porter’s eyes raised and her smile widened this week as she thought about her appreciation for the new Jean Ribault High School.

Tuesday’s volleyball match was one of the first public events at the new Ribault High School since it opened to the public Aug. 8.

Porter, a senior outside hitter for the Ribault volleyball team, had just finished competing against the maroon and gray school from down the road. The Trojans may not have beaten William M. Raines High School, but it could not dampen the enthusiasm on the Northwest Jacksonville campus.

Ribault was the first high school built with funds from the half penny sales tax that Duval County voters approved in 2020. Earlier this month, a new Southside Estates Elementary School campus opened. Next week, Duval Schools will celebrate the completion of a $62.3 million addition to Mandarin High School that opened this academic year.

Ribault Principal Gregory Bostic, during a ribbon cutting this month, said the $120 million campus is the beginning of a new chapter for Ribault.

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Porter says a lot of current and former Trojans have a sense of pride not solely because their campus is sparkling and new, but because the once-maligned school earned an “A” grade from the Florida Department of Education over the summer.

“I would have to give most praise to our principal, Dr. Bostic,” Porter says. “I feel he really pushes us. Even when it comes to being to class on time (and getting our test scores), he really pushes us. …He tells us every day: ‘We have to get this right. You have to graduate.’ Considering that we’re an “A” school that’s all because of our principal.”

The new Ribault features a culinary arts kitchen and lab space; digital audio production studio; facilities for an aviation program; and training space for the school’s nursing program.

The new 234,000-square-foot campus also features a rooftop agricultural garden.

Eugenia Jackson says the transformation of the campus is exciting. Ribault’s volleyball coach started her fifth year at the helm of her alma mater this week.

“It’s exciting to see the kids excited,” Jackson says. “The kids are genuinely excited to come to school. I don’t know if its because of the building or because we got the ‘A.’ … The atmosphere around is different. The combination, like Rachel mentioned, of Dr. Bostic pushing for the ‘A,’ encouraging the kids and they came together and got an ‘A.’

“Ribault hasn’t been an ‘A’ school for a while. To know that not only are we able to excel in athletics, but we are also demonstrating that we can excel in the classrooms.”

Darionna Guyton may one day play for Jackson. For now, she is on the Ribault junior varsity.

Darionna may be her second week of high school, yet she finds the newness of the new school a welcome sight. She says it’s a good avenue to meet new people and learn new things.

One of those experiences was keeping score for the varsity volleyball team Tuesday night against Raines.

Guyton’s mother, Darr’elle Kearse, says the new Ribault has the supplies, emotional guidance and academic support for her daughter to be successful over the next four years.

“I was shocked. I didn’t think it would look this good,” Kearse says. “I believe those tax dollars were put to good use. The school is beautiful.”

Kearse is an Ed White graduate, but she was often at the Northside campus because her cousin, Candice Wright, played basketball there under Shelia Seymore-Pennick.

The new gymnasium may have the best lighting system of any high school facility in the region. Its court is black, with Ribault-blue lettering. There is a melanated Trojan mascot at midcourt. The walls do not yet have the pictures and banners from the scores of basketball successes the Trojans earned over the years.

Those are in a hallway outside the gymnasium. They await placement.

The old Austin-Wilkes Gymnasium had murals on the walls and could be a cauldron of noise, especially when Gateway Conference powerhouses visited Winton Drive. The new facility has higher ceilings.

The decades to come will feature volleyball matches, basketball games and, potentially, community events. But, there can only be one first.

Considering it was against the school from a mile up the road made Tuesday night a special circumstance.

“We were excited about the new gym,” says Raines volleyball coach Gail Thompson, who kicked off her eighth season at the Moncrief-based school. “We were excited to break it in. With Ribault, it’s always a big rivalry.”

Perhaps, but it’s a rivalry based on community.

That’s why Ribault football players hyped up Raines co-captain Tremyiah Edwards every time she stepped back to the service line. It’s also why Raines co-captain Rahniya Ransom’s grandmother was seen in public in a gray T-shirt with maroon letters.

Ransom’s grandmother may be a Ribault alumnae, but her cellphone was inside the new gymnasium to capture the team in maroon and white.

Raines won Tuesday’s encounter 25-18, 25-14, 25-18.

The Vikings have nine seniors on their roster. Meanwhile, Ribault has a handful of players in their starting lineup who do not have as many touches on the volleyball.

Ribault setter Rivka Woolf had never played organized volleyball until Tuesday night. She says the atmosphere inside the new gymnasium was stressful, but amazing.

Woolf’s teammate Rachel Porter took a year away from volleyball in 2024 but returned this year because she missed her coaches and teammates.

Porter, like many members of Ribault’s class of 2026, were freshmen during the last year of the former campus. She is excited for this year.

“Considering that I’ve been here since the old high school, to the middle school and to this new high school, it’s very fun,” Porter says. “Even playing (Tuesday night) was very exciting and very fun.”