Top 100 Best High Schools 2013 – Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies – Newsweek – 14/100

Top 100 Best High Schools 2013 – Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies – Newsweek – 14/100


MLWGS

The Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies (MLWGSGIS) is a public regional magnet high school in Richmond, Virginia.

One of the 18 Virginia Governor’s Schools, it draws students from 12 jurisdictions: Chesterfield, Henrico, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, Prince George, Charles City, King and Queen, and New Kent counties, the Cities of Richmond and Petersburg, and West Point, an incorporated town. As the Governor’s School for Government and International Studies, it shared space at Thomas Jefferson High School (TJHS) in the city’s West End from its 1991 founding until summer 2001, when it moved into Maggie L. Walker High School after massive renovations.[4] The stated mission of MLWGSGIS is “to provide broad-based educational opportunities that develop gifted students’ understanding of world cultures and languages as well as the ability to lead, participate and contribute in a rapidly changing global society.”[5] Every year since 2006 the school was recognized by Newsweek as one of the twenty-one most elite public schools in America.[6][7][8][9] In 2013, Maggie Walker was ranked 14th in Newsweek’s “Best Public High Schools” [10]

History

At its 1991 founding, the Governor’s School for Government and International Studies was given the Thomas Jefferson High School building to share by Richmond Public Schools. The city school stopped accepting freshmen in 1991, intending to turn the building fully over to GSGIS by 1995. However, parents, students, and alumni of TJHS, as well as city politicians, protested the closing of their school, RPS reversed its decision, and in 1992 TJ started accepting freshmen again and GSGIS started looking for a permanent home.

After several years of false starts and administrative turnover, GSGIS finally obtained the Maggie Walker High School building, an abandoned former Richmond City school, as a permanent home. The original building, Maggie L. Walker High School, was first opened in the 1930s as a school for African-Americans. It was named for Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman and African-American to operate a bank in the United States and was once attended by African American tennis pro Arthur Ashe[citation needed], as well as pro football Hall-of-Famer Willie Lanier[citation needed], and NBA great Bob Dandridge. GSGIS took up occupancy in fall 2001 after several million dollars of renovations, and then adopted the name Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies, or MLWGSGIS for short, though commonly shortened further to MLWGS.

Local Map

map

City: Richmond
State: VA
School Classification: M, S
GRAD RATE(%): 100
AP/IB TESTS: 1.5
COLLEGE BOUND(%): 100
AVG SAT: 2128
AVG ACT:
SUBS LUNCH(%): 1
AVG AP SCORE: 4.3
NEWSWEEK SCORE: 4.03

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