Pearl High School

About this property

Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet for Health Sciences and Engineering at Pearl High School (or simply MLK Magnet) is a public magnet high school located in Nashville, Tennessee. MLK includes grades 8–12, and students enter through a lottery process similar to the other magnet schools in Nashville. The school's building was home to Pearl High School, established for African American students in Nashville. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pearl High School was a school for African American students. Franklin Gatewood Smith served as its principal. It was desegregated in 1971. It merged with another school to form Pearl-Cohn Comprehensive High School. The original Pearl High School building, built in 1937 to house an African-American school, was commissioned in 1936 by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and was designed by McKissack and McKissack, a prominent African-American architectural firm. The building features a red brick veneer and Art Deco stylistic elements, in an architectural style commonly used by the PWA and known as PWA Moderne. The building was expanded in 1945 and 1963, again with designs by McKissack and McKissack. The school was Nashville's first secondary magnet for grades 7-12. After Pearl High moved numerous times, settling at 17th Avenue in the 1950s and eventually to its current location at Pearl Cohn Comprehensive High School, MLK Magnet, originally named Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet High School for the Health Sciences and Engineering, opened its doors in August 1986 at the former Pearl High with only grades 7–9, adding one grade per year until 1990 when it had its first graduating class of 25 students. A gymnasium was added to the building in 1995, designed by the Nashville architectural firm of Street, Dixon, Rick. The school's current name was adopted in 2001. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2023, it was announced that between 2024 and 2028, MLK would transition from a 7-12 to a 9-12 model. The middle school curriculum available at MLK would instead be introduced at Head Magnet Middle School. The last 7th grade class at MLK attended during the 2025-2026 school year. MLK possesses one of the most diverse student bodies in Nashville, with a majority enrollment of 55% and an enrollment of economically disadvantaged students of 19%. Over time, the faculty and student populations have diversified, along with the changing demographics of Nashville. MLK is known for its academic program, focusing on math, science, and engineering. The school also has exceptional art, foreign language, band, and orchestra programs. This academic magnet school only offers courses in Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) with the exception of physical education, certain engineering, and critical thinking courses. In addition, MLK offers the unique Practica program as well as advanced and dual enrollment courses along with a partnership with the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt University.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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