St. Paul native Gordon Parks’ life and work as a photographer, film-maker, writer, and civil rights activist provides us with a model for the kind of thoughtful, active, and successful citizens we are dedicated to helping our students become.

We offer flexible programming, media-infused courses and curriculum, a supportive advisory program to help keep our students on track for graduation, and a host of community partnerships, internships, and job support activities for our students. We are a small, orderly, and friendly school where it is impossible for students to be invisible or to get lost in the shuffle.

Gordon Parks staff are specialists in providing students with hope and possibility through a rigorous curriculum. Students can fulfill state and district graduation standards requirements in many ways—from studying Documentary Film and nonfiction writing with our English department, to hands-on applied experiences in Algebra and Chemistry and community-based art, social studies, and environmental studies programs. Just to name a few!

At Gordon Parks, students are expected to practice thinking in real ways as a part of their daily experience school experience. We expect them to be full participants in their own educations and to take themselves and their possibilities seriously. The bottom line is that effort makes the difference. As the great American poet Maya Angelou writes, “Nothing works unless you work.”

At Gordon Parks we work together to make it work for our students.