Martin Luther King High School is a neighborhood public high school located in the East Germantown section of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. It is located at the intersection of Stenton Avenue and Haines Street in Philadelphia. It is a neighborhood school, meaning no application is necessary for those students who live in the West Oak Lane and Germantown sections of Philadelphia. It is named after

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

History

The school opened on February 8, 1972. Originally it housed grades 9-10, while nearby Germantown High School housed grades 11-12, as the school district intended to keep students in Northwest Philadelphia economically integrated. Multiple students were stabbed and hit with metal pipes during a December 5, 1972 altercation between gangs. Some neighborhoods in proximity to King, such as East Mount Airy and West Oak Lane, wanted King to become a 9-12 school because Germantown High was located near poorer areas. Eventually Germantown and King became separate 9-12 schools. The campuses are about apart. Programs at King High include

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and Business and Computers Technology. Their team mascot is the

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. As of the 2005-2006 school year, the school had a population of 1,780 students, mostly African-American. In the 2012-2013 school year King had 750 students. Germantown closed in 2013 and was merged into Martin Luther King High School, causing King's student body to increase to 1,178 for the 2013-2014 school year. - Print: on November 27, 2013 as "Philadelphia Schools Merged in Despair Emerge as a Winner", page B11 A school district $304 million budget shortfall caused the schools to merge. Print: August 4, 2013, page SP1 Germantown students later attended King High and the merger was the subject of the 2014 documentary ''We Could Be King'', directed by Judd Ehrlich.

Student body

King's student body is mostly low-income and African-American, and consists largely of those unable to get admission to

magnet school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...

s and

charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of auto ...

s. Students with special needs made up about a third of the student body.

Standard dress code

King students are required to wear solid light-colored tops and solid dark-colored bottoms. Their school colors are purple and gold.

Athletics

King has an on-campus athletic field and two weight rooms. King was previously the athletic rival of Germantown high in

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

. King's football team won one game in 2012; this was after the other team forfeited. After Germantown closed in 2013 much of its athletic roster joined King's football team. Ed Dunn served as the volunteer head coach of the post-2013 King football team. He had previously worked as a mathematics teacher but had been laid off. In its first year as a merged team, the King football team won its first Philadelphia Public League championship after having nine straight wins.

Feeder pattern

Feeder

K-8 schools K8 or K-8 may refer to: * K-8 (Kansas highway), two highways in Kansas, one in northern Kansas, one in southern Kansas * K-8 school, a type of school that includes kindergarten and grades one through eight * AMD K8, the internal designation for the ...

: *Ana Blakiston Day SchoolHigh School Directory Fall 2017 Admissions

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School District of Philadelphia The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) is the school district that includes all school district-operated public schools in Philadelphia. Established in 1818, it is the 8th largest school district in the nation, by enrollment, serving over 200 ...

. p. 57/70. Retrieved on November 16, 2016. *John F. McCloskey SchoolSchool Finder
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. Retrieved on November 17, 2016. *Pastorius School *Theodore Roosevelt School Feeder middle schools: * Gen. Louis Wagner Middle School *Morris E. Leeds Middle School Feeder elementary schools: *Francis D. Pastorius Elementary School *Franklin S. Edmonds Elementary School (feeds first into McCloskey) *Ellwood Elementary School (feeds first into Wagner Middle) *Julia Ward Howe Elementary School (feeds first into Wagner Middle) *John B. Kelly Elementary School (feeds first into Roosevelt) *James Logan Elementary School (feeds first into Roosevelt) *Joseph Pennell Elementary School (feeds first into Wagner Middle) * Samuel W. Pennypacker School (feeds first into McCloskey) *

William Rowen School William Rowen Elementary School is a historic elementary school located in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a part of the School District of Philadelphia. It was designed by Irwin T. Catharine and built in 1937� ...

(feeds first into Wagner Middle) *Wister Elementary School (feeds first into Roosevelt) The

John L. Kinsey School The John L. Kinsey School is a former K-8 school that is located in the West Oak Lane, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, West Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was a part of the School District of Philadelphia. It was added to th ...

fed into King prior to Kinsey's closure.A Directory of High Schools for 2009 Admissions

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. p. 19/40. Retrieved on November 17, 2016.Martin Luther King High School Geographic Boundaries

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. Retrieved on November 17, 2016.

Notable alumni

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, rapper *

Stefon Jackson Stefon Jackson (born May 7, 1985) is an American former professional basketball player. He is 6'5" tall and played shooting guard. While playing college basketball at UTEP between 2005 and 2009, Jackson scored a Conference USA-record 2,456 poin ...

, professional basketball player *

Raheem Jarbo Raheem Jarbo (born September 3, 1977), also known by his stage names Mega Ran and Random, is an American underground nerdcore rapper, chiptune DJ, and record producer. In February 2015, he changed his stage name to Mega Ran, removing Random from ...

, rapper and producer * Wayne Marshall, professional basketball player *

Ready Rock C Clarence Holmes, better known as Ready Rock C, is an American hip hop record producer, beatboxer, and rapper. He is best known for his early career with Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff, then known as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. According to ...

, beat boxer, songwriter, Grammy award winner *

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External links

Martin Luther King High School
* (2001-2007) * (1999-2000)

References

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King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Public high schools in Pennsylvania 1973 establishments in Pennsylvania Educational institutions established in 1973 Germantown, Philadelphia