Woodrow Wilson High School (Washington, DC)

Woodrow Wilson High School
The district's largest comprehensive public high school
Address
3950 Chesapeake Street, Northwest Washington, DC 20016 United States
Information
School type	Public high school
Motto	Latin: Haec olim meminisse juvabit (In days to come, it will please us to remember this)
Established	1935
School district	District of Columbia Public Schools
Principal	Kimberly Martin (principal was formerly Peter Cahall)
Faculty	102.0 (on FTE basis) (2010-2011)
Grades	9 to 12
Enrollment	1,950 (2013)
Student to teacher ratio	14.88
Campus size	6 acres (2.4 ha)
Campus type	Urban
Color(s)	Green      White
Mascot	Tiger
Website	www.wilsonhs.org

Woodrow Wilson High School is a secondary school in Washington, D.C. It serves grades 9 through 12, as part of the District of Columbia Public Schools. The school is located in the Tenleytown neighborhood, at the intersection of Chesapeake Street and Nebraska Avenue NW. It primarily serves students in Ward 3, although nearly 30% of the student body live outside the school’s boundaries.

The school building, built in 1935 and extensively renovated in 2010–2011, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. The school was named for Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, who was not only a highly regarded academic but the only president to have earned a PhD. The school's motto, "Haec olim meminisse juvabit," is a Latin phrase from Virgil's Aeneid; after a storm, Aeneas tells his men that "In days to come, it will please us to remember this."

Woodrow Wilson High School was built on a patch of land acquired in 1930, known by the neighboring Tenleytowners as "French's Woods". In March 1934, the D.C. commissioners awarded the contract to build Wilson to the lowest bidder, McCloskey and Co of Philadelphia. It was built for a total cost of $1,250,000.

Wilson opened its doors to students on Monday, September 23, 1935, thus becoming the sixth DC Interhigh school. The school started with 640 sophomores and juniors. Many students transferred to Wilson from Central and Western. Western had been running double shifts (9 am – 5 pm) to accommodate the students from the Wilson neighborhoods. The first principal was Norman J. Nelson, who had previously been the assistant principal at Western.