Dateline Minneapolis: Change coming to Dunwoody, North High

A month ago the Minneapolis Public Schools and Dunwoody Academy announced a partnership whereby students from North High School and the vocational charter school would attend classes under one roof during the 2009-10 school year.

For an urban district that's lost thousands of students to charter and suburban schools, the news raised eyebrows and prompted questions.

Will North disappear next year? Will Dunwoody fold? And whom does this partnership benefit?

Minneapolis school district and Dunwoody said neither North High nor Dunwoody Academy is about to close. And as far as who benefits from the partnership, they said both schools stand to gain.

Dunwoody Academy opened on the North Side two years ago on the campus of Harvest Prep/Seed Academy charter school. Today, it serves about 200 students from Minneapolis, St. Paul and inner-ring suburbs, with a curriculum that stresses vocational and technical programs.

North High has lost more than 650 students since 2003, and the building can handle between 1,800 and 2,000 students, so there is ample space for both programs.

Last week, more than 700 North High and Dunwoody students spent the day together for a round of community-building activities that coincided with the inauguration of President Barack Obama. They gathered in North's auditorium and watched as a man who, like many of them, the Constitution would have once counted as three-fifths of a person, became president.

She said the fact that students got along well during the kickoff event last week was a good sign.

"It's like what Obama is saying about change: a couple years ago I don't think this -- to bring all the North students and Dunwoody students together -- would have been possible. But now it is, and I like it."

It's been more than a year since the Minneapolis Public Schools' strategic plan was adopted, but for those who have forgotten, it directs the district to increase the autonomy and flexibility of its lowest and highest performing schools.

North High Principal Ellen Stewart said one of the reasons the partnership appealed to both schools is that they're each working to build strong science, math and technology-related programs despite fiscal challenges, and they may be able to share resources in the future.

"Even though they're Dunwoody and we're North, we have a common goal," Stewart said: To become academic powerhouses.

After the inauguration, North High and Dunwoody students ate lunch together and had time to ask questions and make suggestions about the partnership.

Students learned that next year each school will inhabit separate areas of the North High building with their own entrances, lunch times and academic and behavior policies. For instance, Dunwoody students wear uniforms, and that practice will continue.

"We wanted to really take this chance to focus on the students today," said Duane Dutrieuille, dean of academics and student affairs at Dunwoody. "It was good for them to get together and talk about some of these things."

For Denzel Allen, a 17-year-old Dunwoody Academy junior, the partnership means that he will return to the high school building where he attended school as a freshman. Allen said one of the advantages of the partnership is that North High is larger and more diverse, which means more potential friends and academic opportunities. Then again, Allen said his mother transferred him to the charter school because she thought a small, technology-oriented program would help him stay focused.

At Dunwoody, he's a member of a mentor and community service program called HALO, which stands for "Healthy Attitudes and Learning Opportunities." Anyone who lives or works on the North Side probably drove by the HALO students on Election Day as they stood on busy streets with "Vote Today" signs and helped adults find their polling places.

"If we reach out to North we can grab more people," he said. "We'll have more mentors and more speakers and more people to listen to them."