Miami Northwestern Senior High School

Miami Northwestern Senior High School

Miami Northwestern Senior High School formally opened in September 1955 and was located off 12th Avenue and 71st street. The mascot BULL comes from Dorsey. Once the new school opened, the former graduates from Dorsey would call it the New Bull. There are several graduates still living today from Dorsey. With the explosion of the "baby boom" children needing higher education in the second largest school district in the U.S., Florida's state officials deemed Miami, Florida as a major problem in secondary schools needed as early as 1953. Miami Northwestern was one of the schools in Dade County built to accommodate more students. At this time when Miami Northwestern opened, it served only the black residents of Dade County, along with some schools that had been turned into middle schools such as George Washington Carver, Mays and North Dade Middle Schools were all high schools for the black (negro) residents of Dade County, FL. The class of 1966 all over Dade County stopped having segregated schools, and most of the students from Booker T. Washington came over to Northwestern (and Miami Jackson Senior High School in 1967- 1968 to complete the following years of school. The original school boundaries were 71st Street on the north; 69th Street on the south; 12th Avenue on the west, and 10th Avenue on the east roughly where the new track and field area is today. Part of the new construction of Northwestern is located where some units of a public housing area (commonly called "The Village") used to be years ago. In 1960, the real student crunch hit Dade County. Dade Junior College (later changed its name to Miami Dade Community College North, known today as Miami Dade College) was one of the higher learning 2-year institution experiencing an overload of college-bound high school graduates. Miami Northwestern was chosen to relieve that overage demand with the formulation of Dade Junior College Northwest branch. This branch was moved back to the main campus in 1962. Besides the academic studies for all high school students in place at Northwestern, a comprehensive trade division was also installed in 1955 where students could learn a trade to start work immediately after graduation, making Miami Northwestern a full service community school.

Principal: Mr. Wallace Aristide