The Minneapolis Board of Education recently voted to pass an amended recommendation from the superintendent regarding North Community High School, which would keep the school open and moving forward.
After recommending in October that North High be phased out starting with next year's 9th graders, Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson heard from hundreds of students, parents, alumni and community members about why North High should not be closed. While the district talked of low academic performance by some students, a number of current students and recent North graduates told of taking advanced placement courses at North and how well North High had prepared them for college. Superintendent Johnson called a press conference on November 4 to announce that while she still wanted to not have a 9th grade class for the 2011-12 school year, that she would recommend to the school board that a "New North" open in the fall of 2012. She plans to bring in a national consultant, with experience in redesigning school programs, to work with a design team made up of stakeholders that would include alumni, teachers, elected officials, business people and students. The design team would also be liaisons between the Minnea-polis Public Schools and the broader North Minneapolis community. The superintendent feels it will take several months, and possibly up to a year, to develop and design a new high quality program that meets the needs of students and the community.
The New North would be a 500-student specialty school and the superintendent said she thought the new program would most likely focus on science and technology.
The superintendent made her recommendation to the school board at their November 9 meeting. Again at this meeting, community members, alumni, students and parents told the school board and the superintendent how important North High was to the community, that the Northside had already suffered from all the school closings of the past few years and how those closings had caused the enrollment at North to go down. Another complaint from the community was the district sponsoring of charter schools on the Northside. Unlike the public schools, which have to take all students, the charter schools can choose which students they take and keep. They also said that while they were encouraged about the New North plan, they wanted the school to continue with 9th graders for the 2011-12 school year. After much discussion, the school board amended the superintendent's recommendation to include 9th graders next year if the school could recruit 125 students for the freshman class by March 31. If 125 students have not signed up by March 31, there will not be a 9th grade class at North High next year.
A group comprised of North Alumni, the Friends of North, students, parents and community members is already working on recruiting new students and also supporting the current North students. The group wants students and families to know about all that North High currently offers such as the International Baccalaureate Career Certificate program, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), advanced placement classes, and the KBEM/Jazz88 radio station education.
As is often the case, it took the threat of closing North High for community members and alumni to realize that they needed to stand up for this community asset and rally around the school. North High School has been an important part of North Minneapolis for more than 120 years and is looking forward to the next 120 years.