A look at Central High School

1. Successful Urban
School
Central High School
Since 1866

2. History
 Founded in 1866
 No education in the area besides an elementary school
and students wanted high education
 It took many years of moving into different floors of
building before Central High School had it’s own space
in 1883 after much debate
 Even though the process for Central School to become
a great place for education it is still going strong today
a total of, almost, 130 years

3. Today at Central
 Located in St. Paul Minnesota
 Central has the largest enrollment of the seven Saint
Paul public high schools.
 Total enrollment 2236
 Student: Teacher 27:1
 Student: counselor 559:1

4. Ethnic/ Racial Composition
 Caucasian 33%
 Black/ not Hispanic 32%
 Asian/ Pacific Islander 29%
 Hispanic 5%
 Native American 1%
 40 languages spoken in students’ homes

5. Before and After School
Opportunities
 Central Offers many different before and
after school programs
 Student lead groups and organizations
 Various Sports
 Counseling services for students and
families

6. Before and After School
Opportunities
 On Central’s Website there is over 70 student groups
and organizations including…
 National Honor Society
 Yearbook
 Salsa Dancing
 Debate
 Chess Club
 Anime
 College Possible
 And so many more!

7. College Possible
College Possible is an AmeriCorps program making
college admission and success possible for low-income
students through an intensive curriculum of coaching
and support.
Watch the video on the next slide for more information

8. Specialists Offered
 Media Communications- Central has a recording studio
used for music, morning news, broadcast journalism, and
more.
 Performing Arts- Central is known for their Touring Theater
Group. As well their music department which goes through
out the school year.
 Visual Arts- Like other program the visuals arts are offered
using several types of media. Central also offers some AP
and IB art classes.
 The program is also involved with Concordia University where
they get to have an end of the year exhibit.

9. Specialist Continued
 Building Technology Academy- This program focuses on
raising awareness for students who want to pursue careers
within the construction field and to give a more hands on
experience.
 Besides these specialists Central also offers five options for
college preparedness.
 International Baccalaureate- IB
 Middle Years Program- MYP
 Advanced Placement- AP
 Quest
 College in the Schools
 Post-Secondary Enrollment Options Program

10. Typical School Day
 6 period day with an Advisory/ Homeroom
 Each class last about 50-55minutes, except for 1st hour
which is an hour long, usually for announcements.
 Advisory is only 15 minutes of the day
 The students attend one of three lunches during the
day

11. School Schedule

12. Test Scores
 Central did not meet AYP
 Reading MCA
 Fall 2011 MAP data: 24% of students are “at risk” for
achieving success on the MCA reading exam
 only 61% of students are "on target" from credit loss data:
 Math MCA
 ELL students &Af-Am students are the least likely to pass
the math test (34.5%)
 19% of Central students did not pass the math test.

13. Test Score Cont.

14. Parent Community Outreach
 On the Central website there is a link for parents
seeking counseling for themselves or their family
members. This is a way central tries to provide support
for their community.
 PAC- Parent Advisory Council
 This is a team of parents/guardians that get together a 5
times a school year to make a better community for
Central
 Last year PAC raised over $15,000 to help the school
 It is a great way for parents to be involved with the school
community, get to staff, teachers, and the principal

15. Attendance Rates
 Reading over the school’s improvement plan, there was
a lot of information about raising attendance to improve
testing score.
 By involving student’s families, it is more likely the
attendance rates will improve.

16. Teacher Recruitment
 According to the school’s improvement plan
 The district tries to hire highly qualified staff and retain
highly qualified staff
 Recruitment includes many places including
newspapers, district website, local colleges, student
teachers, and referrals from schools and special licensure
programs like Collaborative Urban Educator and
Transition to Teaching.
 There are also efforts to retain highly qualified staff by
mentoring, performance evaluations and feedback and
workshop opportunities.

17. Connections
 Landsman’s “A White Teacher Talks About Race” and
“Lessons From Teacher’s” article connections
 There were many different connections…
 It is important to show students we care
 From information about Central, I have believe this is something that
is evident with the support they provide for their students, a strong
alumni association, involving the community, and many different
organizations and clubs run by teachers and students.
 Tell students they are smart and they can succeed no matter
their background
 Mainly looking at programs like College Possible, that Central
provides, I think it is one way of showing the students and telling the
students that they can succeed! And that Central will do what it can
to help their students.

18. Successful Urban School?
 I believe there are many definitions of success, most will look at
test scores to figure out “success” but I believe there are other
things to look at.
 Looking at Central I believe it is a successful schools because
 A strong alumni association, alumni still care about the school
which makes me believe Central has a strong community
 Central provides MANY different opportunities for their students to
succeed in different areas.
 There is effort to work with the community since Central has been
a part of the community for so long, the community will only
continue to get stronger.
 Test scores have only been going up for the last 10
years, improvement is always happening!

19. References
 Central high school online. (2012). Retrieved July/4, 2012, from http://central.spps.org/home.html
 College possible- who we are. (2012). Retrieved July/4, 2012, from http://www.collegepossible.org/whoweare
 Saint Paul Public Schools. (2012). Retrieved July/4, 2012, from http://datacenter.spps.org/Attendance.html