Highland Park Schools
| Highland Park Public School Academy System | |
|---|---|
|
Highland Park, Michigan USA |
|
| District information | |
| Type | Public (charter) |
| Grades | PreK-8 |
| Superintendent | Carmen Willingham |
| Schools | 1 |
| Students and staff | |
| Students | 352 (2015-16) |
| Teachers | 24 |
| Student-teacher ratio | 29:1 |
| Other information | |
| Website | http://www.hipark.org/ |
Highland Park Schools, officially the School District of the City of Highland Park, is a school district headquartered in Highland Park, Michigan, United States in Greater Detroit. The district serves the city of Highland Park, a total of 2.98 square miles (7.7 km2) of land.
As of August 2012, prior to the outsourcing of the remaining schools to the Leona Group, the district had three schools with almost 1,000 students. As of that year it was one of the lowest performing school districts in the State of Michigan. As of 2015 it does not directly operate any schools. Instead it authorizes charter organizations to operate one remaining school, Highland Park Public School Academy (PK-8) by the Leona Group. High school students living in the district are assigned to Detroit Public Schools, with Northwestern High School as their neighborhood high school.
Once the "Schools of Choice" program was passed into state law, the district had begun accepting students from Detroit and Hamtramck.
In 1977, the current high school was built for the increasing numbers of students transferring from other school districts (particularly Detroit). Some students were motivated by Highland Park students' access to Highland Park Junior College, which was known to be selective. Jack Martin, who was the emergency manager of HPPS appointed by the state, said that it was a junior college "that was harder to get into than Wayne State."
With the loss of Chrysler and drug dealers coming into the area, the high school was a point of pride for the District and City as it remained a draw for black families seeking suburban-style education without moving there.
Beginning in the 1990s, the district began its decline with the closing of its pool that state-champions used to train in. With students slowing began to leave. Cuts to programs both academic and after-school accrued yearly. In 1996, another hit came in the closing of Highland Park Community College.Deficit spending and deterioration of the buildings began setting in during the 2000s.
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