Quick Facts (2026)
- Grades: 9-12
- Enrollment: 1,855 students
- Student-Teacher Ratio: 14:1
- Minority Enrollment: 64%
- Graduation Rate: 91% (Top 30% in DC)
- Overall Testing Rank: Top 20%
- Math Proficiency: 25% (Top 30%)
- Reading Proficiency: 54% (Top 20%)
- Science Proficiency: 11% (Top 50%)
- Source: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), DC Dept. of Education
Top Rankings
Jackson-reed High School ranks among the top 20% of public schools in District Of Columbia for:
School Overview
(No virtual instruction)
School Rankings
(Top 20%)
School Notes
- School Mascot: Tiger
- 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 serves several neighborhoods, including Georgetown, Glover Park, and Tenleytown.
- The school's demographics are as follows:
- 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 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 and extracurricular programs. Not only do the Tigers maintain the only crew team 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.
- Wilson used to be the only public school in DC with a swimming pool, but the pool has been out of operation for the past five years.
- Famous alumni: Ray Blair; H.R., musician; Clarence Greenwood, a.k.a. 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; Frank Rich, Editorialist, Drama Critic (The New York Times); Ian Herbert, Journalist (Washington Post Express); Adrian Fenty, Mayor-Elect of Washington, DC; Aquil Abdullah, Olympic Rower; Warren Buffett, Billionaire; DJ Spooky, musician.
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