South Education Center is a special education and alternative school in the 7400 block of South Penn Avenue in Richfield, Minnesota.[1] It is part of Intermediate District 287.[2] Eleven school districts from Minneapolis and environs send their students to the center.[3][4] The population served is from pre-Kinder to 21 years of age. The school defines its upper-age limit as "Transition".[5] In 2022 there were 200 students.[6] In the early 2020s, the school served about 80% minority students.[7] Federally, the school is classified as suburban.[8]
Built for 350 students, the $25.4 million building construction began in 2006, and has lockdown capability: classrooms and areas can be electronically isolated.[9] The school features an Accessible Art Garden opened in 2012,[10] and in 2020 the students and teachers extended their art practice to the school's fence.[11] In 2016 the school phased out its use of metal detectors and instead provided with school safety coaches.[12][13] The school trained its staff in "trauma, crisis and de-escalation".[14]
In September 2021, the Superintendent said that the school "serves some of the highest-needs students in the state".[15] In 2022, she added that the school's focus is to provide "destigmatized mental health support".[16] That same year, following the fatal shooting of a student outside the South Education Center, the school district reinstated the metal detectors it had retired in 2016 because of "concerns about criminalizing student behavior."[17]
the South Education Center — a special education and alternative learning school
South Education Center, an alternative school in the Intermediate District 287 that serves students from pre-K to age 21. Police found the two students wounded outside the school, in the 7400 block of S. Penn Avenue
South Education Center serves several school districts
South Education Center, which houses an alternative high school and special education programming and serves 11 school districts from Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs
South Education Center in Richfield, Minn., a school that serves about 200 students with special and alternative-learning needs from prekindergarten to age 21
$25.4 million project at 7440 Penn Ave. S. [...] will serve about 350 students [...] The building also will possess lockdown capability, with electronic locks that can isolate sections and classrooms
Hicks added that South Education Center previously phased out the use of metal detectors at school entrances
The district had previously made the decision to remove its metal detectors and hired school safety coaches to be positioned in the buildings
Within the last several years the district has made investments to become more trauma-responsive — training staff in trauma, crisis and de-escalation
Superintendent Sandra Lewandowski said [...] "As a school district that serves some of the highest-needs students in the state
Superintendent Sandra Lewandowski said [...] focuses on destigmatized mental health support.
The district did away with metal detectors and school resource officers in 2016, citing concerns about criminalizing student behavior and opting instead to rely on safety coaches