Wayne Jennings passed at age 95

Dr. Wayne Jennings, often cited as one of Minnesota’s most influential public school educators in the last 50 years, died at home in Roseville on May 5.  He had a private internment.

Jennings was 95.  A veteran of the US Army, Jennings had many jobs before deciding to become an educator.  Among other things, he was a “gandy dancer” – driving in railroad spikes, operating a canoe building company, building houses,  and running a plastering business.

Memorials preferred to Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs or Minnesota Association of Charter Schools.

While in the Army, Jennings was asked to teach others and discovered that he enjoyed it. After serving from 1952-1954 , he became a St Paul Public School teacher.  Over the next 15 years, he became a principal.  IN 1970, the district asked him to work with a group of parents and community members who wanted to start the first St Paul district option – a K-12 Open School.

The school started in September 1971, with Jennings as the founding principal. It attracted a multi-racial group of students from throughout the city.  In the first several years, more than 10,000 people visited, including the national “Today Show.”   Among the school’s many innovations were

• holding individual student/teacher/family conferences each fall, before the academic year started, so that each student developed an individual plan with family and educator guidance;
• graduation based on demonstrated skill in several academic and applied areas,
• use of the entire continent as a place to learn,
• advisor-advisor relationships with each student, a fore-runner of Minnesota’s Post Secondary Option Law, and
• strong shared governance involving Jennings, along with families, students and educators.
• Pioneering the idea of encouraging educators, parents and community members to help create new public school options.

While directing the Open School, Jennings taught a popular class on magic, which helped young people develop confidence and public presentation skills.

He was asked to speak on public school choice through-out the United States after the US Department of Education gave the school a Pacesetter Award.  The meant that USDE determined that the school was “a carefully evaluated, proven innovation worthy of national replication.”  Jennings usually arranged for other educators and students to speak at these meetings.

The school,  now known as Open World Learning Community (OWL), continues today as part of the St Paul Public Schools, more than 50 years after being founded.  It serves students grades 6-12. More than 30 Open School graduates have written brief essays, found here, about how the school impacted their lives.

Jennings’ insights were recognized in many ways.  He was elected to the Mounds View School Board, including time as the board chair.  Many state and national organizations gave him awards.  Professional publications published dozens of his articles, and he wrote School Transformation, published in 2018.  Experiences in district schools helped convince him to be an early, continuing  advocate for charter public schools.  He helped start a number of them, and one, Jennings Learning Community in St Paul, that was named for him. A number of Minnesota charters use the August conference, advisor/advisee system/graduation based on demonstrated competence ideas that Jennings and Open School implemented.

A life-time lover of ice-cream (especially chocolate), Jennings was known for his understated humility.

Jennings was predeceased by parents, Edwin and Martha Jennings, sisters Barbara Emer and Diane Wittenburg.  He appreciated his many nieces and nephews.

He is survived by brother Darryl Jennings, and daughter. Susan Jennings; sisters-in-law, Roxann Sorenson, Pauline Stonehouse, Diane Burkett. Gaye Sorenson,  nephew Sam Marincel, and 40+ year best friend, fellow educator and wife, Joan Sorenson.

Jennings dedicated his book and his professional life to  “educators past and present striving to give each child programs for active citizenship, productive, satisfying careers, lifelong learning and self-fulfillment.”    For more than 65 years, he modeled how to do that.  In his last note to a long-time friend, Jennings wrote:  “Keep up the fight for youth. I’ll be watching from somewhere.”

Wayne Jennings ideals, commitments and successes are carried on by countless educators, youth and families he learned from,  encouraged and inspired.

A celebration of his life will be held at a later date.