Charles Wright Academy is a private college preparatory school in

University Place, Washington University Place is a city in Pierce County, Washington, United States. Its population was 34,866 at the 2020 census. Based on per capita income, University Place ranks 81st of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked. History Universi ...

, offering Preschool to Grade 12. It was founded as an all-boys private school since its inception in 1957 and began admitting girls in 1970.

History

The idea for Charles Wright Academy was developed in 1947, when Annie Wright Seminary, an all-girls school (at the time), took in some of the students from kindergarten, first, and second grade of Lowell Elementary in Tacoma when their school was damaged by an earthquake. Pleased with the functioning of the school the parents urged to continue the school as co-ed and further including higher grades which was declined. Sam and Nathalie Brown approached Bishop Stephen Bayne of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia who directed them to take the plan forward. They along with other interested parents purchased 127 acres on Chambers Creek Road and began functioning as a private boys school as approved by Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Their first year in 1957 included 40 boys and five faculty members. In 1970, Charles Wright Academy decided to admit girls and has been co-ed ever since. It was named Charles Wright Academy in honor of

Charles Barstow Wright Charles Barstow Wright (January 8, 1822 – March 24, 1898) was a United States financier. Biography Wright was born in Bradford County, Pennsylvania on January 8, 1822. He started in business at 15, and at 19 was taken as a partner by his employ ...

. They provide grades from Preschool to 12. CWA is a member of the

National Association of Independent Schools The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is a U.S.-based membership organization for private, nonprofit, K-12 schools. Founded in 1962, NAIS represents independent schools and associations in the United States, including day, boar ...

(NAIS) and the

Northwest Association of Independent Schools The Northwest Association of Independent Schools (NWAIS) is a nonprofit membership association that provides accreditation, professional development and support services to over 110 elementary, middle, and secondary independent schools in Alaska, ...

(NWAIS). It is located in the 107-acre campus in

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

and follows a non-sectarian religious affiliation.

Academics and faculty

CWA has a total of 84 teachers among whom 61% have advanced degrees. They have an average of 16 students per class and offers 16 AP courses.

Athletics

A total of 11 sports are offered which includes;

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, cross country,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

. They also offer theatre and knowledge bowl which count towards sports credit. There are numerous student-run clubs at the school.

Student accomplishments

* The sailing team at CWA came first in the 2017 NWISA Double-handed Championship and earned the honor of representing the Pacific Northwest on the national stage. * In 2017, they won in Cougars' home debut. * CWA also won in the

FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work during a six-week period to build robots capable of competing in that year's game that weig ...

Nisqually League championship. * In 2019, the CWA Knowledge Bowl team won first in state in the 2A division. In 2022 they earned 2nd in state in the 2A division. ** Historic placements include first place in 2017, 2015, 2013, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, and 1996, in various divisions ranging from a joint A/B to 4A. * In spring of 2019, the Envirothon team won 2nd in Pierce County and 3rd in the overall South Sound region.

Notable alumni

Penn Badgley Penn Dayton Badgley (born November 1, 1986) is an American actor and musician. He is known for his roles as Dan Humphrey in The CW teen drama series ''Gossip Girl'' (2007–2012) and as Joe Goldberg in the Netflix thriller series ''You'' (2018� ...

, actor *Jonah Bergman, bassist of Schoolyard Heroes *Steve Bonnell, guitarist of Schoolyard Heroes *

J'Nai Bridges J’Nai Bridges is a two time Grammy-Award winning American mezzo-soprano. She is a winner of the Marian Anderson Award and has performed for the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, and San Francisco Opera. BET has described her as ' ...

, opera singer *

Ryann Donnelly Ryann was born in Olympia, Washington. With friends from high school, Jonah Bergman and Steve Bonnell, Ryann formed the band Schoolyard Heroes. Their debut album was " The Funeral Sciences", and their second album " Fantastic Wounds" was a cult ...

, lead vocalist of

Schoolyard Heroes Schoolyard Heroes was an American horror punk/alternative rock band from Seattle, Washington, United States, consisting of four members: Ryann Donnelly (lead vocals), Jonah Bergman (bassist, back-up vocals), Steve Bonnell (guitar), and Brian Tu ...

* Nate Mondou, baseball player

Notable faculty

*Sarah Sadlier, historian''Prelude to the American Revolution? The War of Regulation: A Revolutionary Reaction for Reform''
Sarah Sadlier; Charles Wright Academy, Tacoma, Washington; (2012);

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

format file, accessed March 8, 2019.

References

{{coord, 47.2012, -122.5454, type:edu_region:US-WA, display=title Schools in Tacoma, Washington