What originally was supposed to be office building more than 20 years ago is now Woodbury's hidden success story.
"There's a lot of people who don't know about us," said Math and Science Academy Director John Gawarecki.
Now Math and Science Academy is ranked number one on Minnesota's top high schools list according to US News.
Teacher Michelle Kurkowski says it's about everyone buying in with a creative teaching style.
"having a review game that isn't just correcting your study guide, but then working together solving a problem based on the content. That's really awesome," said Kurkowski.
Junior Breanne Pundsack has a different take.
"Math and Science is kind of a family based school it feels," she said.
Her mom Joell agrees. She has now had three daughters come through the school.
"I literally thank the school for her success," Joell said. "We expect high achieving out of the students as well."
"Two years ago we were number one. Last year we were number four. I was a little down about that," said Gawarecki.
He refers back to what he calls a triangle of success.
"You have students. You have to have students. We're a public school so we take any student that comes in. We have to have the parents and we have to have the best staff that's possible," said Gawarecki. "If they don't get challenged they let us know. They want to learn."
John says he wants to rank higher nationally.
"Jumping from a 201 to a 133 is a big step," he said talking about national rankings.
Either way, you won't hear about their success, from them at least, too much.
"We just let our actions speak for ourselves," said Gawarecki.
