Students are sent to Northwest Secondary; no students actually sign up to go there. For the 2011-2012 school year, only seven students made NWS their first choice. All seven are registering for severe special education programs at this school because there are few other choices. Sixth grade has 80 openings; not a single regular sixth grader has signed up for NWS. Ninth grade has 60 openings; not a single ninth grader has signed up.
Few teachers pick NWS; many are assigned from the out-of-assignment teacher pool. Many teachers quit or move on to other schools when there are openings elsewhere. The central administration keeps rotating principals through the school.
Northwest Secondary is a dumping ground.
Still some of the best teachers I know teach at this school and tell me there are a number of excellent students at the school trying to make their way through a horrendous environment. And it is horrendous. On April 12th, 33 NWS students were arresting for fighting. The police had to return a second time as fights continued into the afternoon. Teachers at the school state that the school continually has fights. This incident was only unusual in the number of students involved and its duration. Students have had to be tasered by police more than once.
On the surface NWS secondary matches a model which I support: a small secondary school of several hundred, grades 6 through 12. But not every 6-12 school is worth saving.
The MPS superintendent recommended that NWS become a “Turnaround” school receiving federal funds. Under this model, the school would have a new principal and no more than 50% of its teachers would be allowed to return.
At the full April school board meeting, I recommended that we consider phasing out and ultimately closing at least the high school portion of the school. I questioned whether replacing 50% of the staff would do much good. After all, nearly that many teachers leave that school only after a couple of years. And where would the administration get teachers who wanted to make a difference at NWS?
MPS has too many empty seats on the high school level. NWS is only a mile or two from three comprehensive highs schools: Madison, Custer and Marshall. NWS simply is not needed.
Why the administration wants to keep the school open was revealing. At the meeting, the superintendent had no other place he could put these students, and if we just closed the school, we would not receive additional federal funding. He did not spend any time telling the board how the school could be reformed and make it a better place for learning.
When NWS teachers called me days before the meeting they lobbied me not to make their school a “Turnaround” school. When I told them perhaps just closing the school might be a better option, none contradicted me on that possibility.
If we truly are going to turn NWS around, we must go the extra mile to find the best teachers and principal for this school. Students who need alternative programs must not just be dumped into this school.
The superintendent prevailed in keeping NWS open, but now the school is on the radar screen. We have spent a lot of time and energy in the creation of college prep high schools but so little effort at the other end. We cannot have “throwaway” high schools where we warehouse children that nobody wants. Schools like Northwest Secondary need to be fixed or closed but not forgotten.
