Partnership Zone School Profile: Howard High School

Howard High School is a vocational school located in downtown Wilmington.  Howard serves students in grades 9-12 throughout New Castle County, although it enrolls predominately low-income and minority students from the Wilmington area.  Howard offers 14 vocational-academic programs including law, business, nursing, dental and public service.    

Based upon 2010 DSTP scores, Howard High students:

·         Demonstrated continued declines in reading and stagnant achievement in mathematics (which are significantly below the state averages).

·         Scored significantly worse compared to other schools within the New Castle County Vo-Tech School District, especially Polytech and Sussex Tech High Schools.

Howard High School is under Academic Watch by the Delaware Department of Education and has not made AYP for two consecutive years. 

Howard High School presents a unique opportunity, as well as unique challenge, for stakeholders to come together and strengthen their campus community.  Since Howard offers an academic program that differs from traditional high schools, their approach must be unique and tailored to their campus context.  However, all students who are enrolled at Howard are technically zoned to a different district high school; therefore, they applied specifically to attend Howard. These efforts to apply outside of the district system show their parents’ and families’ strong interest in pursuing an academic curriculum that differed from their feeder high school. There is an opportunity to build on this high level of involvement to ensure that Howard is as strong as it can be for all of its students.  In the end, though, we must ensure that all schools, regardless of curriculum, are graduating college and/or career ready.  Therefore, the Partnership Zone and Howard High School’s success must be measured by increased student proficiency rates in math and ELA on state assessments. 

Superintendent Godowsky stated, “We are optimistic that the resources and supports made available to the school as a result of this Partnership Zone designation will help to accelerate the progress our students are making on their academic achievement.”  We hope that all stakeholders share Superintendent Godowsky’s optimism and choose to take part in this historic opportunity.  All interested can start by attending the New Castle County Vo-Tech District School Board meeting on Monday, September 27, 2010, 7:00 p.m. at Howard High School to express your opinions on the future of Howard High School. 

This blog is the third part of a four part series detailing the four schools that have been chosen for the Partnership Zone Initiative.  Read part 1 and 2.