Marking its 25th anniversary, the Washington School for Girls (WSG) is an all-girls, all-scholarship Catholic middle school in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C. According to the school’s website, its mission is to “ignite the joyful pursuit of learning and inspire faith-filled lives of purpose, leadership, and service.”
Over the past five years, the school has raised more than $20 million to continue subsidized tuition for its students, reached a 100% high school graduation rate, and hired two alumnae as full-time faculty members.
The school prides itself on the education it provides at no cost, as well as the long-lasting resources and community that follows its graduates as they enter high school and college.
The Washington School for Girls began as the dream of women from the National Council of Negro Women, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus and the Religious of Jesus and Mary. The outreach began as the Washington Middle School for Girls in 1997 with an after-school tutoring and enrichment program, and the next year it began offering a full-day program. Now the year-round academic program serves students at two campuses in Southeast Washington, including at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish,
Claire Green, Michaela Acquah, and Monique Whitaker are 8th graders about to graduate from the school. In recent interviews, they expressed mixed emotions – they’re excited about high school, however, the feeling of friend groups becoming separated and missing teachers has been sinking in slowly.
Green has been a student there since the fifth grade. She said she appreciated the “sisterhood” among her peers and the small class sizes.
“You kind of know everybody, and in small classrooms, the teacher acknowledges you more,” Green said. “It’s a better environment for me, personally.”
Green said she will miss her friends from the Washington School for Girls as she heads to Riverdale Baptist for high school in the fall.
“I’m also kind of happy, because I get to experience new things and learn new things about myself,” Green said.
Green said the all-girls atmosphere at the Washington School for Girls has been beneficial to her learning environment – she feels more comfortable speaking to her needs as a young woman.
“You can talk about your personal issues (with them),” Green said.
As for what the future holds, Green is torn between a modeling career, or becoming a lawyer, or an engineer.
Michaela Acquah is set to start at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, although she is hoping to transfer to Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, where she can reunite with some of her WSG friends.
Acquah, who has been a student at the Washington School for Girls since fourth grade, said her favorite subject is science.
“I always liked the space stuff, also chemistry, I like mixing chemicals and trying to memorize them,” Acquah said. She said she would like to pursue psychiatry when she’s older, diagnosing people’s mental illnesses and how she can alleviate their symptoms.
Like Green, Acquah has appreciated the liberties an all-girl student body offers – the pressure is off, she said.
“Since it's without the boys or anything, I could kind of just dress up like anything, I could have a bad hair day or something, and no one will really tell me, or they will, but eh, whatever,” Acquah said, laughing.
Although she has some reservations about entering a co-ed environment, noting “there might be more harassment,” Acquah is confident in her ability to thwart any unwanted comments.
Monique Whitaker is excited about her science class right now, as they are learning about phase change (when a matter changes from one state to another, such as a liquid to a solid).
“We’re trying to do an experiment of freezing water because we’re going to make ice cream,” Whitaker said.
Science is important to Whitaker, who said she aspires to become a chemical engineer.
“I want to be an entrepreneur, I know that everything is chemicals,” Whitaker said. For an eighth grade school project, she made skincare products. “I had to mix different ingredients together…I’m making body butter.”
Whitaker said through the Washington School for Girls, she was able to “meet new people and really connect with” her classmates and teachers.
Fundraising is an important part of keeping the school completely subsidized. For the school’s 25th anniversary, a gala was held on May 14 at Trinity Washington University campus. The event, which was filled with bright and shining cocktail attire, kicked off with WSG President Dr. Beth Reaves.
Throughout the night, videos were shown of faculty, students, and staff talking about the importance of the Washington School for Girls and highlighting the school’s role as a vital resource serving families in D.C.’s Wards Seven and Eight.
Speakers included alumna Amari McDuffie, who went on to work as an asthma educator and severe asthma coordinator at Impact DC Asthma Clinic. She holds an undergraduate degree from Penn State University and a master’s in public health from George Washington University.
When asked to speak at the gala, McDuffie said she shed “an emotional tear, just because I was honored to be thought of. WSG holds such a special place in my heart. I’ve learned so much from this school, I like to credit them for the majority of my work.”
McDuffie’s accolades after WSG include recognition from former President Barack Obama going into her senior year at Benjamin Banneker Academy for her academics, despite being frequently hospitalized for her health.
“I got to meet him, I got to hug him, he was really nice, he gave me a shout out, he was very casual. It was like he knew a lot about me,” McDuffie said.
In recent years, one of McDuffie’s Penn State professors was a partner with a research program with the National Institutes of Health that awarded McDuffie a study abroad research trip.
“I was one of the seven students awarded and I was going to do research in Nepal for cardiovascular [disease], however because of COVID, it got delayed so I’ve just been doing some research at home, I’m still hoping and looking forward to going to Nepal,” McDuffie said.
McDuffie said to any parents considering sending their daughters to the Washington School for Girls, that, “Definitely, without a doubt, I think you should send your children, not because I went here, but because of the support that it gave me. I’m able to look at other people in my communities like me and see if they went to this school, if they had the resources I had, the access that I had, the world would be a better place, especially D.C.”
The gala raised $1.2 million for the school, surpassing Dr. Reaves’ initial goal of one million.
