Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Education Center


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. PhantomSteve/ talk ¦ contribs \ 18:50, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

South Education Center

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Continuing the discussion started at the talk page: the subject does not appear to meet WP:GNG and there is no Intermediate District 287 article that would serve as an adequate target per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Virtually all the coverage cited is trivial with respect to the school, as it is routine news coverage of criminal incidents that occurred near the school (a shooting in February 2022, and an unrelated gun incident in September 2021). The sole exception (not counting sources affiliated with the school itself) is this citation to a trade publication which I am unable to access, but which would be insufficient for establishing GNG in the absence of other sources. Searching online and on ProQuest, I was only able to find more routine coverage of the gun-incidents, but nothing substantial about the school itself. signed,Rosguill talk 19:04, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Schools and Minnesota. signed,Rosguill talk 19:04, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 19:24, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep — this school, as reported by CNN, has won a national Grand Prize awarded by the United States Department of Agriculture; a school winning a state, provincial (Canada) or county (UK), or higher-level sporting or academic event ought to count towards establishing notability. In addition, there is WP:INDEPTH coverage by the trade journal Finance and Commerce (ISSN 8750-6149) (WP:PAYWALL is never a valid argument for deletion) and furthermore both Patch and Fox feature articles which are exclusively dedicated to arts and arts education at this school, and are therefore WP:SIGCOV.  The nom cites "shooting incidents," but the article does not mention any shooting incidents —the entire article is utterly devoid of any crime, shooting or anything related, as this is an article about an educational institution. Now, it just so happens that the school has also been covered by sources such as Minnesota Public Radio, The New York Times, and the Star Tribune (among many others), and that these sources tell us important facts about the school, including that the school and its district have made important investments in training for staff, that it serves high-need students, that it "currently serves 200 students," for example.  Now, anyone thinking that the student count is irrelevant is welcome to edit the article and delete the reference to The New York Times if they deem the Times an inappropriate source. Another consideration for the closer is WP:NOTTEMPORARY.  In this regard, observers ought to notice the dates of the WP:RS currently in the article: • 2006 (Finance & Commerce), • 2012 (Patch), • 2016 (CNN), • 2020 (KMSP Fox), • 2021 (Star Tribune), • 2022 (KSTP-ABC),(WCCO-CBS), etc.  XavierItzm (talk) 17:33, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the above comment misrepresents the arguments I have put forward here and prior at the talk page, and fails to provide links to the coverage in question that would demonstrate that the coverage, despite being in major publications over the course of a decade, is of very minimal depth and significance with respect to the school itself. The coverage of the award, for instance, can be found here, and reads in its entirety Studies show kids like to eat food with fun names but this grand prize winner is as nutritious as it is tasty and fun to say. The recipe for Porcupine Sliders was dreamed up by Chef Todd Bolton and students, community members and school professionals from the South Education Center Alternative School in Richfield Minnesota. signed,Rosguill talk 19:43, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It might be useful if the nom would have done even a basic WP:BEFORE before nominating. Here is a full article dedicated exclusively to how the South Education Center Alternative (SECA) won the national prize.  I will not copy/paste the whole article, but I will note it is, again, yet another article with WP:SIGCOV of the school, and that it runs 755 words to narrate how the school wanted to participate in then-First Lady Michelle Obama's Healthy Kids Contest, how it assembled a team, how they came up and debugged their recipe, and how they participated in the finals in Texas, with the White House Chef, and won.  This new source is from 2011, so now the article features datelines from 2006, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2022.  With regard to the other SIGCOV material from WP:RS, the links are already provided above and in particular in the article. XavierItzm (talk) 22:11, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The source linked in this comment says at the top This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own. I don't think that counts as a reliable source. signed,Rosguill talk 19:43, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The proper place to dispute reliability is here. It is now more evident than ever that no WP:BEFORE was done; consider for example this additional source, Food Safety News restating (in much abbreviated form) how South Education Center won the grand prize, the narrative of which is questioned above: Porcupine Sliders, turkey burgers jazzed up with brown rice, spinach, celery, garlic spices and dried cranberries, captured the grand prize in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition. The Porcupine Sliders were served up by the team from Intermediate District 287, South Education Center Alternative in Richfield, Minn. at the national cook-off held during the American Culinary Federation National Convention earlier this week. White House chef Sam Kass acted as master of ceremonies for the cook-off.  But beyond that: we have WP:SIGCOV from at least four sources which dedicated WP:INDEPTH coverage exclusively to the South Education Center: Finance and Commerce (2006); Patch (2011); Patch (2012) and Fox (2020), plus, of course the 15 other additional WP:RS cited in the article. XavierItzm (talk) 05:49, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I take offense to the repeated assertion that I did not conduct a WP:BEFORE search, as I in fact detailed one in my opening statement. With the exception of a single source that I am unable to access and cannot comment on, I respectfully disagree with your definition of what constitutes significant coverage of a subject and maintain that we don't meet that bar here. One does not judge a school primarily by the quality of their porcupine sliders. If the coverage about the recipe contest included several paragraphs about the staff and kitchen at SEC, that would be significant in my view, but so long as it is focused almost entirely on a single recipe served at the school, I don't think we should count it. signed,Rosguill talk 15:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No ofense intended: the nom's original argument was that the WP:INDEPTH coverage of the school was insufficient despite its inclusion of the 2006 article Function and flexibility governs the design of South Education Center in Richfield from Finance and Commerce; ignored went by the 2012 articles Richfield SEC Students Turn Into Artists from Patch and 2020 Students, teachers create George Floyd tribute on Richfield fence from KMSP Fox, which provide further WP:INDEPTH exclusive and non-incidental coverage of the school's applied arts and therapeutic approaches to educating the "highest needs" students in the State of MN. The argument was then raised that the USDA's national award to the school, as reported by CNN in 2016, was only incidental coverage; which might have been a fair objection... until a quick search yielded yet another WP:INDEPTH article about the school's educational approach and partnership with the community and how it won the national award: that's the 2011 article Richfield SECA's Journey to the Top of Healthy Kids Recipe Competition from Patch. This article, however, was questioned... so another quick search yielded yet another article, 2011's 'Porcupine Sliders' Win School Lunch Contest from Food Safety News, which corroborates 100% the article that had been questioned. In conclusion, the process in this conversation has been: question -> net search yields response -> question -> net search yields response, etc., which, perhaps, could have been avoided at the outset. One does take offence at the mischaracterisation of the school as if it were all about a sandwich: One does not judge a school primarily by the quality of their porcupine sliders.  The referenced national award articles and other SIGCOV describe the schools's community- and partnership-based approaches to getting its marginalised student body to win a White House-directed competition (2011), as well as to inspire the students with the arts (2012) and with arts-based involvement in current affairs (2020), and it all in a highly engineered-for-purpose and advanced physical environment (2006). XavierItzm (talk) 08:07, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 21:10, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: Maybe it's time for an Intermediate District 287 (or Intermediate School District 287) article that would cover South Education Center and the other special education programs that District 287 serves for its member districts. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 15:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep. It's valuable content, well referenced, that passes WP:GNG. It is a unique facility where WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES may not be relevant.  I would also support a move to Intermediate District 287, if there is interest in broadening the topic.   Uninvited Company 17:00, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - there is nothing unique about this school. Alternative high schools are quite common. 174.212.212.9 (talk) 22:03, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment to the comment. Agreed that there is little unique about this school, except the winning of national awards sponsored by the White House, and the incredibly broad  coverage it has received from WP:RS across three decades, and which includes CNN (2016), The New York Times (2022), Finance and Commerce (2006), Food Safety News (2011), Patch (2011, 2012), KSMP Fox (2020), and a solid dozen other WP:RS, each single one of which is utterly and completely independent from the subject (and which include, for example, the Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio, etc.)  Hey, any other plain, run-of-the-mill institutions which have this sort of deep and frequent nationwide coverage might also have their own Wiki entry, don't you think? XavierItzm (talk) 03:47, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.