Merged high schools at former Dorchester High renamed “Dorchester Academy”

BOSTON – Two small high schools at the Dorchester Education Complex have merged and been renamed Dorchester Academy. The Boston School Committee approved the recommendation last week after a community process led by the School Site Council to consider the name change.

The former Edward G. Noonan Business Academy and the Academy of Public Service are merging into a single high school opening in September, as part of Superintendent Carol R. Johnson’s “Pathways to Excellence” plan to consolidate some schools while expanding others. Dorchester Academy will be located in the former Dorchester High School on Peacevale Avenue, along with the upper grades of TechBoston Academy, a pilot middle and high school.

The school will include a new Business and Leadership Center, which will be named in memory of former teacher Edward G. Noonan. In December, Dr. Johnson announced that Noonan Business Academy Headmaster Kwesi Moody would serve as Headmaster of the new school. Rudolph Weekes, Headmaster of the Academy of Public Service last year, was recently appointed Headmaster of Media Communications Technology High School in the West Roxbury Education Complex.

Dorchester Academy will feature an academic focus to help students prepare for college and career in public service, business and the law.