Walden III Middle and High School is a middle and high school in Racine, Wisconsin that offers alternative education. Walden is one of the Racine Unified School District's two magnet schools for secondary students, alongside the REAL School. Located between the city's Midtown and School Section neighborhoods, Walden is smaller than most Racine schools, with 292 high school and 246 middle school students as of 2016, and "emphasizes increased freedom based on responsibility and accountability".
History
The school was founded in 1972 by Jackson Parker and David Johnston, two teachers at Racine's Park High School and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. As part of their doctoral dissertation project, they intended to develop a paradigm for evaluating alternative secondary schools, and study the effectiveness of curriculum choices. The Racine Unified School District gave the pair permission to open Racine Alternative High School as part of their project, approving the proposal and purchasing the McMynn building, named for educator John G. McMynn, founder of the public school system in Racine, from the Racine Technical Institute to house it. In its original form, the school was intended specifically for "disaffected students who don't respond to the traditional high school" to whom it would offer "a flexible program and [...] community resources outside the classroom". The school opened in September and was given its current name in a vote by students, who chose it over "Frank Zappa High School". The name is taken from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, because of Thoreau's commitments to experimentalism and individuality, and the numbering references behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner's utopian novel, Walden Two. During its first three years, the school admitted only 11th and 12th grade students. In 1975, 10th grade and a middle school (at the time grades 7 through 9) were both added; and due to district changes in 1983, 6th grade was added to middle school and 9th grade moved to high school.
Buildings
Walden's original location was the McMynn Building on 7th Street in downtown Racine. This school, named in honor of John G. McMynn, was originally built in 1903 to serve grammar school students in the city's second ward. After being used as an annex to Racine High School in the 1910s, the school board sold it and it then served a variety of purposes, including a ration board office during World War II and as part of the Racine Technical Institute. The building returned to the school district in 1972, when it was purchased to house Walden. In 1975, it was demolished, and on its site McMynn Towers, an apartment complex for senior citizens, now stands.
After the demolition of the McMynn Building in 1975, the Walden program moved into a then-vacant Franklin School Building at 1012 Center Street, between the city's Midtown and School Section neighborhoods. The original part of this building (the Franklin Elementary School Building), making up what would be known as the "West Wing", was constructed in September 1869 or January 1870, and consisted of six rooms in a two-story building. This school was first known as the Third Ward grammar school, but within its first year the city changed its ward boundaries and it became the Sixth Ward grammar school. The first expansion to this building was made in 1899, doubling its capacity by adjoining an identical six-room structure, and when the school reopened in September it was renamed Franklin school. The school was further expanded with the construction of a new wing opened in 1921, where the new Franklin Junior High School was located alongside Franklin Elementary School. These wings are connected by a breezeway, frequently used as an alternate entrance for students attending after-school activities. The junior high school at Franklin closed in June 1966, in part because African-Americans were overly concentrated at the school. The Franklin Elementary School closed at the end of the 1974-1975 school year, and the Walden program moved into the building the following year.