Washington International School

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Washington International School aka WIS
Established	1966
School type	Independent
Head of school	Clayton Lewis
Location	Washington, DC, USA
Campus	Primary School 1690 36th Street NW Washington DC 20007 Tregaron 3100 Macomb Street NW Washington DC 20008
Enrollment	830 day
Faculty	90 full-time, 14 part-time
Student:teacher ratio	8.2:1
Homepage	www.wis.edu

Washington International School (also known as Washington International or simply WIS) is a coeducational international school for day students in grades pre-Kindergarden through 12. The school is located in northwest Washington, DC.

Established in 1966, WIS was the first school in the Washington area to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program.

The school has two campuses: the primary school (grades PK-5) in Georgetown, and the upper school (grades 6-12) in Cleveland Park. The upper school’s campus is located on the grounds of Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Tregaron estate.

1 History
2 Affiliation
3 Trivia
4 References

[edit] History

Washington International School was founded in 1966 by Dorothy Goodman to meet the educational needs of Washington’s international community and American families seeking a rigorous international education.

In the post-World War II years, international schools were established throughout the world to serve the growing number of families, mostly from developed countries, posted abroad by governments and commercial firms. These schools usually were founded by a community of families of a particular nationality and followed the educational system and curriculum of their country. They were international primarily in the sense that they accepted children of other nationalities.

When Goodman founded WIS with three pre-school students in the basement of a Washington, DC house, she had a clear vision for the school. Informed by scientific research on the capacity of the human brain to acquire multiple languages, especially in the early years, and marketing research that focused on the educational needs of international families in Washington, she imagined a school in which children could become functionally multilingual and at the same time well informed about world history, geography, literature, and cultures.

From the beginning, WIS has offered a range of subjects for study within a common curriculum. The school aims for high academic standards and enables students to master at least two major modern languages. The program equips students to enter university in their own country or any country of their choice.

The school’s founding was followed shortly by the incorporation of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), which itself grew from International School efforts to establish a common curriculum and university entry credential for geographically mobile students. WIS was among the first 60 schools to adopt the IB Diploma curriculum.

In 1969, with financial assistance from the Ford Foundation, WIS purchased the Wendell Phillips School building on Olive Street in Georgetown. The Olive Street campus served the school for 29 years, first as a space for the whole of the school, and, in subsequent years, as its Lower School site. In 1998, the lower grades moved into a newly-built facility at Reservoir Road and 36th Street NW. For the first time, this location enabled Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 to be in the same Primary School Campus. The Tregaron Campus, acquired with assistance of the Ford Foundation in 1980, is the site of the Middle School (Grades 6 through 8), the Upper School (Grades 9 through 12).

[edit] Affiliation

For nearly a decade Washington International School has enjoyed an affiliation with KIS International School in Thailand. Sharing a vision and philosophy, and with identical mission statements, WIS and KIS maintain an active and mutually rewarding relationship with frequent visits and consultations.