After a $20 million renovation program (the new building, just to the east of the old site, opened in September 1978) failed to lure white students to North Division, the
school board voted to turn the school into a
magnet school specializing in medical and science
technology. A "Coalition to Save North Division" was formed, arguing that this school which had produced many
African-American leaders for Milwaukee was being abolished, displacing black students and continuing a process of placing the burden of
desegregation on them (at the time, the student body was 96.6% black). The Coalition eventually won: on May 1, 1980, the school board reversed itself, and North Division remained heavily African-American in composition. == Abolition ==