Harding Senior High School is a public comprehensive high school located on the East Side of Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The school is one of the nine high schools in the Saint Paul Public School District and is the largest high school in the city of Saint Paul, with enrollment at approximately 1,908. The school was opened in 1926 as the second high school on the East Side, after Johnson Senior High School. Harding is part of the IB Diploma Programme. Harding is a member of the Minnesota State High School League and the athletic teams compete in the Saint Paul City Conference. Education Harding Senior High School was one of several schools participating in smaller learning communities. In a somewhat similar fashion to specific colleges within the University of Minnesota, smaller learning communities were implemented in the 2002–2003 school year to group students that had similar interests together for a career. Freshmen were automatically placed in the 9th Grade Academy, and the following year, select to be in the Academy of Fine Arts, the Medical and Environmental Sciences Academy (MESA), the Human Services Academy, or the Science, Engineering, & Information Technology Academy (SEIT). However, the Academies have been facing difficulties with the large student body and change has been slow. While academic performance has improved over the past few years, there was not enough data to associate the increase with smaller learning communities. There was a limit of 500 students per academy, which presented a dilemma with the Academy of Fine Arts who have had to reject a number of students. A possible cause is the large base of students involved in some form of fine arts. Another challenge is scheduling students to just their academy teachers. In 2009 the music listening team made up of Matt Howard, Maivboon Vang, and Colton Moyer, took home a second-place finish at the state competition, this was after placing first in sections. The previous year Matt Howard, Connie Sinks, and Colton Moyer, took second in sections and advanced to state. The state placing team of 2009 was featured in the Star Tribune. One student from the class of 2006 was the recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship, five Harding alumni were named KARE-11 Academic All-Stars and one received a WCCO-TV outstanding graduate award. Electives Athletics Harding's athletic program offers several sports. The girls badminton team have dominated the sport in the