In 1918, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School opened around the corner from its present location as the Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School, No. 101. The original school was part of the segregated "colored schools" system, which was abolished by 1954. The present school is part of the Baltimore City Public Schools system. It was named in memory of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a famous African-Americanpoet, who had died twelve years before the school opened. In 1925, it was renamed Dunbar Junior High School, No. 133. In 1940, Dunbar became a high school and awarded its first diploma, the second school for African-Americans in Baltimore to do so. In the summer of 2007, after thirty years of heavy use, the main high school building was emptied for renovations. Students were moved to Thomas G. Hayes Elementary School, behind Dunbar at 601 North Central Avenue. The renovations were completed in late August 2009 with costs totaling $32 million. Newly renovated features include science and robotics labs, wider interior hallways, larger windows, a new cafeteria, and a new library.
Academics
Dunbar High School is a magnet school, offering biotechnology, emergency medical technology, accounting, nursing, and health care delivery systems programs. Dunbar High School has been named a Bronze Medal School by U.S. News and World Report.
Athletics
The male varsity sports offered at Dunbar are baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and wrestling. The women's varsity sports offered are badminton, basketball, soccer, softball, and volleyball. The four varsity teams that are coed are cross country, swimming, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field.
Football
The Baltimore City Public Schools withdrew from the Maryland Scholastic Association in 1993, its long-time home since 1909 and the home of the formerly segregated schools, Dunbar and Douglass, since 1956. The schools then joined the larger, statewide Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, and since then Dunbar has had great success in the class 1A division. The Dunbar football team, the Poets, won state championships in 1994, 1995, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2017.
Basketball
Since 1993, the school's basketball team, the Poets, have won the State Championship fifteen times. Additionally, the Poets were National Champions in 1983, 1985 and 1992. Dunbar's girls basketball team, the Lady Poets, have excelled as well, winning the state girls basketball title in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2011 and 2012.
Community partnerships
Dunbar is one of the partner schools of Thread, formerly the Incentive Mentoring Program, an organization formed by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine that tutors high school students to help prevent them from failing high school. Struggling students selected by the principal can receive one-on-one tutoring from Thread mentors, as well as social support to address any personal challenges that may be affecting their school performance.
