Jackson-Reed High School
Woodrow Wilson Senior High School is a secondary school located in Washington, DC, United States.
Wilson, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the District of Columbia Public Schools.
Dr. Stephen P. Tarason is currently the sitting principal for Wilson and has been since 1999. The school's website says "'Woodrow Wilson Senior High School, Washington, D.C.’s largest comprehensive public high school, is known for its academic excellence and for its geographic, ethnic and economic diversity'". The school's student body represents 85 countries and the students come from 40 different schools in the city. The school mascot is the Wilson Tiger, and the motto is "Haec olim meninissee juvabit", which translates to "In days to come, it will please us to remember this". It is notable that, in context in Virgil's Aeneid, the line was an ironic comment made after the characters survived a shipwreck. Woodrow Wilson Senior High is located in DC's Tenleytown neighborhood, one block off Wisconsin Avenue NW.
In mid 2006, Woodrow Wilson Senior High School was proposed to be a charter school, but opposition from out-of-bounds students put the plan on hold. It has however a major objective of neighborhood and in-bounds interests. Woodrow Wilson Senior High School is the top performer in the non-magnet High School system in DCPS and one of the top performers in DCPS overall.
The school's demographics are as follows:
- Approximately 1,420 students
- School boundaries encompass everything west of 16th Street, NW, all of southwest Washington north of the Anacostia River, and parts of Capitol Hill southeast
- Nearly 30 percent of the student body live outside the school’s boundaries
- Εthnic mix: 53% African American, 22% European American, 16% Latin American, 8% Asian American
- Nearly 40 percent of the students receive free and reduced lunch benefits
About 89 percent of Wilson students continue their education beyond high school, with 77 percent attending four-year or two year colleges or universities. Woodrow Wilson HS was the first school in the metropolitan area to adopt and implement a four course a day, alternating even day and odd day, modular schedule.
Aside from its academic strengths, Wilson is also known for its athletic programs. Not only do the Tigers maintain the only wrestling and crew teams among DC public high schools, but the baseball team has won more than ten consecutive city championships, and the soccer, cross country, and track teams are perennially among the best in the city.
Famous alumni
- Ray Blair
- H.R., musician
- Citizen Cope, musician
- Emmanuel Burriss, baseball player
- Darryl Jennifer, musician
- Ian MacKaye, musician
- Henry Rollins, musician, poet, media personality
- Roger Mudd, Reporter
- David Mays, Publisher (The Source)
- Tommy Duren, Politician, Puppeteer, Child Entertainer
- Dave Chappelle, Comedian, Actor
- Frank Rich, Editorialist, Drama Critic (The New York Times)
- Adrian Fenty, Mayor-Elect of Washington, DC
- Aquil Abdullah, Olympic Rower