Howard W. Blake High School

Howard W. Blake High School is a public magnet high school, with an emphasis on the arts, in Tampa, Florida, United States. It is operated by the School District of Hillsborough County. Originally opened in 1956 as a school for African-Americans, it was integrated as a junior high school after the end of segregation. The current building opened in 1997, when Blake again became a high school. History Don Thompson Vocational High School opened as a segregated school for African-Americans in 1956. It was soon renamed Howard W. Blake Comprehensive High School in honor of Howard Wesley Blake, an African-American educator and educational activist from Tampa. The original Blake High School closed after the 1970–71 school year as Hillsborough County Public Schools desegregated. It reopened in the following year as Blake 7th Grade Center, an integrated school that only taught one grade level of students. In the early 1990s, the school housed students from 7th through 9th grade and was renamed Blake Junior High School, a middle school. This school closed in 1996, and the old building was demolished soon thereafter. Magnet school In the fall of 1997, the Blake name was transferred to Blake High School, a new high school housed in a new building opened as a magnet school for the visual, communication and performing arts.