(Memphis) Northside High School lives to see another year, and a strategic plan may have been its life support.
“Monday through Friday, Saturday. The only day we have not worked is on Sunday to really see what it is we have before us,” said Katrina Thompson, who represents a group of Northside alumni who have been behind the scenes working to show how Northside can be saved.
Their detailed plan called for putting vocational courses and a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math curriculum (STEM) into the school.
“Currently, students at Northside High School go to other programs at other schools. They are not implemented at Northside and perhaps if the programs are at Northside, the same could happen, students could come to Northside,” Thompson said.
It won over the Shelby County School Board, who gave them a year to turn around the school’s dwindling student population. It will be a year of hard work.
Northside supporters now have to move from planning to action, and they say a zoning change will help.
“Is there a possibility that the students who are zoned to Northside can attend Northside?” Thompson said.
There is even talk of bringing in middle or elementary school grades to make Northside a K-12 school.
That might take some convincing, but it’s one option and for those trying to give Northside High a fighting chance, which means no option is off the table.
“We do not want to see Northside closed,” Thompson said.
The alumni will also engage as many parents as possible in the fight to save their school.
They won’t have to go it alone – they say Superintendent Dorsey Hopson is providing a staff member to work with them to look at ways to make improvements at Northside.