Minneapolis South High School
Encyclopedia
South Senior High School is the largest public school (state funded) in Minneapolis
, Minnesota
, located in Corcoran neighborhood. Its student population is 1963, with a staff of 115 as of the 2009–10 school year. The school's principal is Cecilia Saddler, who is assisted by three assistant principals and administration from each Small Learning Community.
—in 1892. Several years after its humble start South had its first graduation, totaling twenty-seven students. Within several years, South had outgrown the Adams School and the Minneapolis School Board
began a search to find a new, larger location for the school.
They found a plot of land, purchased from a man named Frank Murphy, that had once housed an orchard and a cornfield. It was on this newly acquired land that the foundation for the new South High was laid. The building was completed on or around New Years Day, 1892, and in 1893, the 250 students of South High School and the 208 students of the adjoining middle school took the triumphant march to their new building, at 2445 18th (or Cedar) Avenue South.
The new building was a masterpiece. Built out of red brick and sandstone in a castle-like structure, in typical 1890s architectural fashion, it featured multiple turrets, twelve-foot ceilings, stained-glass bay windows and a six-story bell tower. After the last part of the building, the bell tower, was erected, it was decided by the School Board
not to purchase a bell for it. The reasons for this are unclear, but it is thought that the large bell used to mark the beginning and ending of classes was ditched in favor of an electric bell system run by a motor. The bell tower would remain until the rest of the building around it was destroyed.
The student body kept growing at a fast pace, it had grown to between 750 and 800 students by 1909. The once spacious quarters of the school had become small, and the auditorium was sacrificed for more classrooms by dividing it up into four quarters using green curtains. Students had trouble concentrating with this setup, and the Minneapolis School Board decided changes needed to be made.
That first significant change came in September 1910 when the new manual and training wings were opened. This new part of the school allowed students to be trained into business and other commercial professions. The highest reported number of students taking classes in this part of the school at any time was 800 students, using 149 typewriters along with other equipment. In January 1911, a new auditorium was opened up to the graduating class, with an initial seating capacity
of 1,913. In contrast, South High's current auditorium has a listed seating capacity
of 715. The new auditorium space, along with the manual and training wings, consisted of a new style of architecture. No clear pictures of these additions are available, and the only description offered for the style was "medieval."
The final extension to the school came in 1916. Most of the original structure was demolished to make room for a new large building. The new structure, still connected to the old structure and the manual and training wings, followed the architectural style of its time, with a square look and evenly cut windows, at least one to a room. Several schools in the area from this period and architectural style remain.
This paragraph from the January 1927 Parent-Teacher Broadcaster summarizes it and the parts inside it the best:
After the First World War, work began on an athletic field, which was built across Cedar Avenue from the building. No more details on its initial construction can be found.
A number of changes to the school were requested by the parents and teachers of South High in 1924. These included a new chorus room, or band room, to seat 400 students, fireproofing and alteration of the auditorium, a new gymnasium, and improvement of the athletic field.In the summer of 1926 the auditorium was remodeled and fireproofed, a process that cut the seating capacity
from 1,913 to 1,655. At the same time, sets of stairs were added leading out to Cedar Avenue to relieve ever-growing congestion at entryways. The band room was expanded, facilitating its rampant growth and eventually spurring other schools to develop programs of their own. The athletic field was finished, complete with a concrete fence, comfortable seating, and a large gateway dedicated to the South students who died in the First World War. In addition, the old gymnasium was replaced by two new ones, separated by a partition—one side for boys, the other for girls.
The height of what is known as South's Golden Age, which lasted from 1916 to about 1940, came, ironically, during the height of the Great Depression
. In 1933, South High School had 2,820 enrolled students, and, despite the misery of the outside world, the school continued to grow and prosper and show students the possibility of a better life away from the Depression.
The end of the old South High building came in the 1940s, as the oldest part of South started to show distinct signs of age. The stonework began to crumble. The wooden floors that comprised all of the old section of the school were warped and wavy. Even the furnishings and old art that lined the walls was still there. Few classes were held in the old section of the school anymore and when it rained, the roof leaked, sending water streaming down its labyrinthine corridors.
In the summer of 1950, wrecking hammers went to work on the front of the old school, an action met with vigorous protest, a large part of it coming from alumni. It would take until 1953 to destroy the old third of the building, leaving the other two parts untouched.
They did not remain untouched by controversy for very long, however. In 1961 South High principal Carl Lundin sent a petition to the Minneapolis School Board
for a new South High School. The Citizens Group, people interested in saving historic buildings, met this with protest. Their protest was met with counter-protest, setting off a seven-year period of constant protest. Several different sites were considered for building the new South High, and one was only decided on four and a half years after the original proposal. The plans met further trouble after that when a building plan upon which could not be agreed. The proposal that brought the most anguish after it was rejected was the City Council's
refusal to close 31st street to accommodate the new athletic field. It brought the most news attention of any problem and yet it seems like a silly issue today – the athletic field is simply across 31st street from the building. Contracts for the New South were finally awarded in early October 1968 and a groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 11, 1968, using five shovels engraved with letters spelling "SOUTH". The class of 1969 became the last class to graduate in the antiquated South High building. Partway through the next year, classes switched to the new school and the Old South was destroyed.
At this time in history, the nation was experiencing great turmoil within its boundaries due to the prolonged Vietnam War
and the government's cover-up of vital information about the true progress of the war. Construction for the New South began in 1968, the year when public opinion of the war took a big turn for the worst. Just a few months before the gala open house for the new building the Kent State shootings
occurred – four students were killed by National Guardsmen
during a protest of the war and of government policy, sparking a new round of student protest across the nation.
From the outside, South looks like a brick fortress. The new building was possibly made to counter the student unrest of the times. Windows are absent from the original building. Windows are prone to shatter easily unless expensive shatterproof glass is used. Structures of this time period tend to lack windows, which could be quickly destroyed by any violent protest around them, a common occurrence, making them at best expensive to replace and at worst a public safety hazard. The original floor plans also changed with more additions, such as the third floor, added in the late nineties with the seeming innovation of windows.
However, students at South High were given an equally plausible explanation for the somewhat prison-like structure. The architect for the New South Project was from Texas, and his interpretation for energy efficiency over the long winters caused him to edit any extensive use of windows. Additionally, when the building first opened, it was an "Open School," with no individual classrooms on the second floor. The small windows that were used in the design provided light across the open area. Only when the school was converted to typical classroom divisions did the lack of natural light become an issue.
The original floor plan was open, in keeping with the educational philosophies of the time. Ideally, such a configuration would allow for shared learning among students in different classes. More pragmatically, the open floor plan produced distractions and additional interior walls were added later to separate different classrooms from one another. The construction of classrooms after the fact created a "rabbit maze" of identical hallways, and in some instances classrooms that are only accessible via other classrooms.
, commons area, and balcony
. An ongoing joke for new freshman was the existence of a fourth floor that does not overlook the commons. Said fourth level has a fantastic view of downtown in some of the language classrooms, or at times is alleged to have a swimming pool. The first floor contains the main office
, auditorium, general instruction classrooms, biology
classrooms and technology
/shop
classrooms. The second floor contains many mathematics
, social studies
and English language arts classrooms, as well as the Media Center. It now also has a small studio theatre called the "Skybox", which will be used for one-act plays written and directed by South students. It was paid for, for the most part, by alumnus Josh Hartnett
, and Friends of South High Theater raised the other money. The third floor, constructed during the 1996–97 school year, houses advanced science
classrooms, language
classrooms, storage, Triple E classrooms, and All Nations classrooms. In the summer of 2001, the auto shop was turned into a band room to meet the ever-growing need of that department, and the ventilation system was remade to allow for more efficient air conditioning. Each student is issued an identification card, which is checked upon entry through all entrances, to ensure the safety of the students and staff.
In Spring 2007, a project to renovate all of the public high school auditoriums in Minneapolis moved on to the South auditorium. The renovations, which had finished by the beginning of the 2007-08 school year include all new lighting and sound equipment, an extensive box for lighting and sound control, two sets of double doors at the main auditorium entrance, and a wheelchair accessible balcony. Theatrical performances on the stage began in Spring 2007. Due to space restrictions, there is no fly system.
, Spanish
, German
, Latin
, Chinese
, Ojibwe
, and for many years also Russian
). The school is renowned for its cultural diversity
, with students from White
, African-American, Asian
(particularly Hmong
), Northeast African
(particularly Somali
and Oromo
), American Indian
, and Hispanic communities. There is an increasing number of Eastern European students.
While many academic programs at South are widely respected, the South student body also experiences a significant achievement gap. Students from wealthier and more educated families tend to be enrolled in Advanced Placement and College in the Schools classes, and attend college after high school much more frequently than students from other socio-economic backgrounds. This trend is also discernible by ethnic background. In fact, a significant percentage of South students drop out of school completely before graduation. These trends exemplify the sociological concept of social reproduction, whereby barriers to social mobility prevent the poor from leaving poverty. The state of Minnesota
, to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, has given SHS two stars out of five in both reading and mathematics. This means that South failed to meet federal accountability standards in both categories in the preceding academic year. The school received nationwide press in 2005 after it introduced an on-line physical education (P.E.) class. The program allows students to select a physical activity of their preference and then engage in that activity three times a week in order to meet the P.E. requirements of the school. This is a district wide program.
s, and other social events. Many students arrive early or leave late to participate in extracurricular ("co-curricular" is the administration's preferred term) activities including ethnic student associations, language clubs, competitive academic groups, mock trial
, Academic Decathlon, Quiz Bowl, debate
, and political groups. SHS has a very active theatre company. Some of their plays are student directed and many parts of the production encourage student involvement (for instance, the sets are designed and built by students.) South High School is also a powerhouse when it comes to national academic competitions and is a tradition for South Students. In 1998 South's Mock Trial team was 2nd in State, in 1999 they were State Champions and ranked nationally, in 2005 students took fourth place in the nation in the Mock Trial
competition. and in the 2006 national competition, South took twelfth place. The South Mock Trial team stopped competing before the 2007 season. In 2005 South was ranked first in National History Day.
Class AAAA state championship losses to St. Paul Central, Minneapolis South got what they longed for by beating Centennial High School 68-61 in the 2009 class AAAA state final. Tayler Hill led all scorers, tying the all-time tournament record for most points in a single game with 47. Hill broke several Minnesota high school records in her senior season, including most career points with 3,894, most points in a single season with 1,053, and most free throw makes and attempts in a single season (270/350).
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, located in Corcoran neighborhood. Its student population is 1963, with a staff of 115 as of the 2009–10 school year. The school's principal is Cecilia Saddler, who is assisted by three assistant principals and administration from each Small Learning Community.
Origins
South High School was formed in 1885 inside of four rooms in the attic of the old Adams School at Franklin Avenue and Sixteenth Avenue. It was in this setting that South High School began many traditions that continue to this day. The small student body of this school within a school began publishing the South High Observer, the direct predecessor to today's school paper: The Southerner. South High Theater presented its first play—Cox and BoxCox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
—in 1892. Several years after its humble start South had its first graduation, totaling twenty-seven students. Within several years, South had outgrown the Adams School and the Minneapolis School Board
Minneapolis Public Schools
Minneapolis Public Schools or Special School District Number 1 is a school district that covers all of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools...
began a search to find a new, larger location for the school.
The new building was a masterpiece. Built out of red brick and sandstone in a castle-like structure, in typical 1890s architectural fashion, it featured multiple turrets, twelve-foot ceilings, stained-glass bay windows and a six-story bell tower. After the last part of the building, the bell tower, was erected, it was decided by the School Board
Minneapolis Public Schools
Minneapolis Public Schools or Special School District Number 1 is a school district that covers all of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools...
not to purchase a bell for it. The reasons for this are unclear, but it is thought that the large bell used to mark the beginning and ending of classes was ditched in favor of an electric bell system run by a motor. The bell tower would remain until the rest of the building around it was destroyed.
The student body kept growing at a fast pace, it had grown to between 750 and 800 students by 1909. The once spacious quarters of the school had become small, and the auditorium was sacrificed for more classrooms by dividing it up into four quarters using green curtains. Students had trouble concentrating with this setup, and the Minneapolis School Board decided changes needed to be made.
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of 1,913. In contrast, South High's current auditorium has a listed seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of 715. The new auditorium space, along with the manual and training wings, consisted of a new style of architecture. No clear pictures of these additions are available, and the only description offered for the style was "medieval."
The "Golden Age"
With this last part of the central school building added, South High School became one of the architectural wonders of the city of Minneapolis, featuring three different sections with different architectural styles, linked together in an offbeat harmony.This paragraph from the January 1927 Parent-Teacher Broadcaster summarizes it and the parts inside it the best:
After the First World War, work began on an athletic field, which was built across Cedar Avenue from the building. No more details on its initial construction can be found.
A number of changes to the school were requested by the parents and teachers of South High in 1924. These included a new chorus room, or band room, to seat 400 students, fireproofing and alteration of the auditorium, a new gymnasium, and improvement of the athletic field.In the summer of 1926 the auditorium was remodeled and fireproofed, a process that cut the seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
from 1,913 to 1,655. At the same time, sets of stairs were added leading out to Cedar Avenue to relieve ever-growing congestion at entryways. The band room was expanded, facilitating its rampant growth and eventually spurring other schools to develop programs of their own. The athletic field was finished, complete with a concrete fence, comfortable seating, and a large gateway dedicated to the South students who died in the First World War. In addition, the old gymnasium was replaced by two new ones, separated by a partition—one side for boys, the other for girls.
The height of what is known as South's Golden Age, which lasted from 1916 to about 1940, came, ironically, during the height of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. In 1933, South High School had 2,820 enrolled students, and, despite the misery of the outside world, the school continued to grow and prosper and show students the possibility of a better life away from the Depression.
The end of the old South High building came in the 1940s, as the oldest part of South started to show distinct signs of age. The stonework began to crumble. The wooden floors that comprised all of the old section of the school were warped and wavy. Even the furnishings and old art that lined the walls was still there. Few classes were held in the old section of the school anymore and when it rained, the roof leaked, sending water streaming down its labyrinthine corridors.
In the summer of 1950, wrecking hammers went to work on the front of the old school, an action met with vigorous protest, a large part of it coming from alumni. It would take until 1953 to destroy the old third of the building, leaving the other two parts untouched.
They did not remain untouched by controversy for very long, however. In 1961 South High principal Carl Lundin sent a petition to the Minneapolis School Board
Minneapolis Public Schools
Minneapolis Public Schools or Special School District Number 1 is a school district that covers all of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools...
for a new South High School. The Citizens Group, people interested in saving historic buildings, met this with protest. Their protest was met with counter-protest, setting off a seven-year period of constant protest. Several different sites were considered for building the new South High, and one was only decided on four and a half years after the original proposal. The plans met further trouble after that when a building plan upon which could not be agreed. The proposal that brought the most anguish after it was rejected was the City Council's
Minneapolis City Council
The Minneapolis City Council is the governing body of the City of Minneapolis. The City Council is composed of 13 single member districts, called wards. Barbara Johnson is president of the council. The council is dominated by members of the DFL Party with 12 members. The Green Party has one member...
refusal to close 31st street to accommodate the new athletic field. It brought the most news attention of any problem and yet it seems like a silly issue today – the athletic field is simply across 31st street from the building. Contracts for the New South were finally awarded in early October 1968 and a groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 11, 1968, using five shovels engraved with letters spelling "SOUTH". The class of 1969 became the last class to graduate in the antiquated South High building. Partway through the next year, classes switched to the new school and the Old South was destroyed.
The New South
The open house for the new South High School was held on October 11, 1970, exactly two years after the groundbreaking ceremony.At this time in history, the nation was experiencing great turmoil within its boundaries due to the prolonged Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the government's cover-up of vital information about the true progress of the war. Construction for the New South began in 1968, the year when public opinion of the war took a big turn for the worst. Just a few months before the gala open house for the new building the Kent State shootings
Kent State shootings
The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre—occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970...
occurred – four students were killed by National Guardsmen
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
during a protest of the war and of government policy, sparking a new round of student protest across the nation.
However, students at South High were given an equally plausible explanation for the somewhat prison-like structure. The architect for the New South Project was from Texas, and his interpretation for energy efficiency over the long winters caused him to edit any extensive use of windows. Additionally, when the building first opened, it was an "Open School," with no individual classrooms on the second floor. The small windows that were used in the design provided light across the open area. Only when the school was converted to typical classroom divisions did the lack of natural light become an issue.
The original floor plan was open, in keeping with the educational philosophies of the time. Ideally, such a configuration would allow for shared learning among students in different classes. More pragmatically, the open floor plan produced distractions and additional interior walls were added later to separate different classrooms from one another. The construction of classrooms after the fact created a "rabbit maze" of identical hallways, and in some instances classrooms that are only accessible via other classrooms.
Current Architecture
The South High School building has three floors which surround an auditoriumAuditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
, commons area, and balcony
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
. An ongoing joke for new freshman was the existence of a fourth floor that does not overlook the commons. Said fourth level has a fantastic view of downtown in some of the language classrooms, or at times is alleged to have a swimming pool. The first floor contains the main office
Office
An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...
, auditorium, general instruction classrooms, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
classrooms and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
/shop
Industrial arts
Industrial Arts is an umbrella term originally conceived in the late 19th century to describe educational programs which featured fabrication of objects in wood and/or metal using a variety of hand, power, or machine tools...
classrooms. The second floor contains many mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, social studies
Social studies
Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...
and English language arts classrooms, as well as the Media Center. It now also has a small studio theatre called the "Skybox", which will be used for one-act plays written and directed by South students. It was paid for, for the most part, by alumnus Josh Hartnett
Josh Hartnett
Joshua Daniel "Josh" Hartnett is an American actor and aspiring producer. He first came to audiences' attention in 1997 as "Michael Fitzgerald" in the television series Cracker. He made his feature film debut in 1998, co-starring with Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later for Miramax...
, and Friends of South High Theater raised the other money. The third floor, constructed during the 1996–97 school year, houses advanced science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
classrooms, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
classrooms, storage, Triple E classrooms, and All Nations classrooms. In the summer of 2001, the auto shop was turned into a band room to meet the ever-growing need of that department, and the ventilation system was remade to allow for more efficient air conditioning. Each student is issued an identification card, which is checked upon entry through all entrances, to ensure the safety of the students and staff.
In Spring 2007, a project to renovate all of the public high school auditoriums in Minneapolis moved on to the South auditorium. The renovations, which had finished by the beginning of the 2007-08 school year include all new lighting and sound equipment, an extensive box for lighting and sound control, two sets of double doors at the main auditorium entrance, and a wheelchair accessible balcony. Theatrical performances on the stage began in Spring 2007. Due to space restrictions, there is no fly system.
Small Learning Communities
The school has three different Small Learning Communities (SLCs). They are Liberal Arts, Open, and All Nations American Indian. During the summer of 2006, the Triple E (Environment, Empowerment, Essentials) program was eliminated, and students belonging to those SLCs were placed into the Open and Liberal Arts communities. It is at this time unknown what will happen to the assistant principles and counselors that were previously assigned to the Triple E community. There are, in addition, several programs for special education students and teenage parents.Student body and academics
There was so much interest in the school during the 1990s that local newspapers printed articles with parents stating that if their child's application to the magnet program at South was not accepted, they would send their child to private school. South has extensive offerings in general education, special education, athletics, and world languages (FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Ojibwe
Ojibwe language
Ojibwe , also called Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of the Algonquian language family. Ojibwe is characterized by a series of dialects that have local names and frequently local writing systems...
, and for many years also Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
). The school is renowned for its cultural diversity
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, with students from White
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, African-American, Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
(particularly Hmong
Hmong people
The Hmong , are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity in southern China...
), Northeast African
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
(particularly Somali
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
and Oromo
Oromo people
The Oromo are an ethnic group found in Ethiopia, northern Kenya, .and parts of Somalia. With 30 million members, they constitute the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and approximately 34.49% of the population according to the 2007 census...
), American Indian
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, and Hispanic communities. There is an increasing number of Eastern European students.
While many academic programs at South are widely respected, the South student body also experiences a significant achievement gap. Students from wealthier and more educated families tend to be enrolled in Advanced Placement and College in the Schools classes, and attend college after high school much more frequently than students from other socio-economic backgrounds. This trend is also discernible by ethnic background. In fact, a significant percentage of South students drop out of school completely before graduation. These trends exemplify the sociological concept of social reproduction, whereby barriers to social mobility prevent the poor from leaving poverty. The state of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, has given SHS two stars out of five in both reading and mathematics. This means that South failed to meet federal accountability standards in both categories in the preceding academic year. The school received nationwide press in 2005 after it introduced an on-line physical education (P.E.) class. The program allows students to select a physical activity of their preference and then engage in that activity three times a week in order to meet the P.E. requirements of the school. This is a district wide program.
Events and organizations
There are many annual events on the school year schedule, such as the open house, parent-teacher conference days, homecoming, athletic events, danceDance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
s, and other social events. Many students arrive early or leave late to participate in extracurricular ("co-curricular" is the administration's preferred term) activities including ethnic student associations, language clubs, competitive academic groups, mock trial
Mock trial
A Mock Trial is an act or imitation trial. It is similar to a moot court, but mock trials simulate lower-court trials, while moot court simulates appellate court hearings. Attorneys preparing for a real trial might use a mock trial consisting of volunteers as role players to test theories or...
, Academic Decathlon, Quiz Bowl, debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
, and political groups. SHS has a very active theatre company. Some of their plays are student directed and many parts of the production encourage student involvement (for instance, the sets are designed and built by students.) South High School is also a powerhouse when it comes to national academic competitions and is a tradition for South Students. In 1998 South's Mock Trial team was 2nd in State, in 1999 they were State Champions and ranked nationally, in 2005 students took fourth place in the nation in the Mock Trial
Mock trial
A Mock Trial is an act or imitation trial. It is similar to a moot court, but mock trials simulate lower-court trials, while moot court simulates appellate court hearings. Attorneys preparing for a real trial might use a mock trial consisting of volunteers as role players to test theories or...
competition. and in the 2006 national competition, South took twelfth place. The South Mock Trial team stopped competing before the 2007 season. In 2005 South was ranked first in National History Day.
Athletics
South's girls basketball team rose to prominence in the last several years when Ahmil Jihad assumed the head coach position. The same year, Tayler Hill joined the team as an 8th grader. Hill won the state scoring title her sophomore and senior years and led South to a 139-14 record in her five-year career. After two consecutive Minnesota State High School LeagueMinnesota State High School League
The Minnesota State High School League is a voluntary, non-profit association for the support and governance of interscholastic activities at high schools in Minnesota, United States. The association supports interscholastic athletics and fine arts programs for member schools...
Class AAAA state championship losses to St. Paul Central, Minneapolis South got what they longed for by beating Centennial High School 68-61 in the 2009 class AAAA state final. Tayler Hill led all scorers, tying the all-time tournament record for most points in a single game with 47. Hill broke several Minnesota high school records in her senior season, including most career points with 3,894, most points in a single season with 1,053, and most free throw makes and attempts in a single season (270/350).
Notable alumni
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for the Philadelphia Athletics - Genevieve GorderGenevieve GorderGenevieve Gorder is an American television host, is an interior decorator, and actress. She is currently the host of Dear Genevieve on the HGTV cable channel.-Early life:...
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and Cagney and Lacey - Carl C. RasmussenCarl C. RasmussenCarl Christian Rasmussen was a Lutheran minister who was also a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council between 1939 and 1947.-Biography:...
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member - Cathy WurzerCathy WurzerCathy Wurzer is an American journalist and author. She and her husband Eric Eskola are longtime hosts of Almanac on Twin Cities Public Television. She also hosts the regional portion of Morning Edition on Minnesota Public Radio...
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