The Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies (MLWGSGIS) is a public regional

magnet high school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. One of the 18 Virginia

Governor's Schools Governor's School may refer to: National organizations *National Conference of Governor's Schools, a national organization committed to establishing, supporting, and enriching summer residential governor's school programs. High schools * Governor ...

, it draws students from 14 jurisdictions: the counties of

Chesterfield Chesterfield may refer to: Places Canada * Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan * Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom * Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England ** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...

, Henrico,

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, Goochland, Powhatan, Prince George,

Charles City Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

, King and Queen, New Kent and Dinwiddie, and the cities of

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, Hopewell, and Colonial Heights. 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

renovation Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures. Renovations are typically done on either commercial or residential buildings. Additionally, renovation can refer to making something new, ...

s. Every year since 2006 the school was recognized by

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

as one of the twenty-one most elite public schools in America.Newsweek (May 28, 2007) The Public Elites.
''Newsweek Magazine''. Retrieved on 2007-08-07.
''Newsweek Magazine''. Retrieved on 2010-11-16. In 2013, Maggie Walker was ranked 14th in Newsweek's "Best Public High Schools" In 2014, Maggie Walker was ranked 10th in The Daily Beast's "Best High Schools" and 7th in their "25 Best High Schools in the South."

Applying

Applicants undergo an application process in which assessment materials and essay prompts are administered. A combination of grades, recommendations, and test results determine the applicants' overall score. All applicants must have completed and passed at least Algebra I or an equivalent math course. It is also recommended that students have completed Honors English, Earth and Life Sciences, and at least one year of a foreign language, but this is not required. Overall, about 16-17% of applicants are accepted into MLWGSGIS out of a pool of around 1200"Admissions"
''Maggie Walker Governor's School''. Retrieved on 2017-05-18. applicants from all the participating localities, making the freshmen class usually around 190 students. The school grades the applications, but it is the applicant's home school district that decides who is allowed to attend the school based on scores and available funding.

Organization

Each city or county that wishes to send students to the Governor's School must fund the school for the students that they send, as well as provide busing to and from the school. While the Governor's School allows allotments for each locality that cannot be exceeded, it is the individual localities that ultimately determine their own limit on how many students can be sent within the parameters of the allotment given and available funding. The Regional School Board of the Governor's School that oversees the administration comprises one school board member from each of the participating localities.

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 Richmond Public Schools is a public school district located in the independent city of Richmond, Virginia. It is occasionally described locally as Richmond City Public Schools to emphasize its connection to the independent city rather than the ...

. 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 American civil rights lawyer and politician

Henry L. Marsh Henry Leander Marsh III (born December 10, 1933) is an American civil rights lawyer and politician. A Democratic Party (United States), Democrat, Marsh was elected by the city council as the first African-American mayor of Richmond, Virginia in ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

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 ...

pro

Arthur Ashe Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam singles titles. He started to play tennis at six years old. He was the first black player selected to the Unite ...

, as well as pro football Hall-of-Famer Willie Lanier, and NBA great Bob Dandridge. GSGIS took up occupancy in fall 2001 after several million dollars of renovations and adopted the name Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, or MLWGSGIS for short, though commonly shortened further to MLWGS.

Academics

Today, MLWGSGIS is known for its challenging academic curriculumNancy Nusser
Maggie Walker Turns 20
''Richmond'' (February 2, 2011). and performance in national and regional academic competitions. Large numbers of graduating seniors at the Governor's School seniors are accepted into highly ranked universities.

Community service

To foster community improvement efforts, all Governor's School students are required to complete 140 hours of community service by graduation. School clubs frequently participate in neighborhood cleanup projects. In order to receive a Governor's School diploma, all community service and credits must be completed. The 2008 graduating class completed over 34,500 community service hours.

Athletics

MLWGSGIS competes the Colonial District grouping with other greater Richmond area schools, and in statewide competition as part of Region B in group Class 3

Virginia High School League The Virginia High School League (VHSL) is the principal sanctioning organization for interscholastic athletic competition among public high schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The VHSL first sponsored debate and also continues to sponsor sta ...

. Previously the school was in VHSL Class 2 but at the end of the 2019 season was moved up to Class 3 due to a growing student population. The school fields teams in basketball, dance, volleyball, wrestling, soccer, tennis, golf, swimming, field hockey, cross-country, indoor and outdoor track and field, baseball, and softball; only football is omitted from the offerings of a traditional public high school. The school mascot is the Green Dragon, adopted from the former Maggie L. Walker High School. In 2001, the boys' cross country team won the state AAA championship, led to victory by head coach

Jim Holdren James G. Holdren, Jr. (born 1942) has been coaching cross-country and track and field for 60 years. He began his coaching career at William and Mary while he was still a cross-country runner on the team. In 1988, Holdren won the NHSCA girls track ...

. In 2010, the Maggie Walker girls' cross country team became the state runner-up in the AAA championship. In 2019, the Maggie Walker Cross country boys team placed third while the girls team won the 2019 cross country AAA State Competition in their respective groups. In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011 the field hockey team won the colonial district championship. In 2008 the team was the central region runner-up to rival Thomas Dale, which qualified the team to go to states for the first time in 3 years. In 2010 and 2011 the team won the Central Region Championship and once again played in the State Tournament. In 2013-14 The Boys' and Girls' Cross Country Teams won first place in their respective AA sections and so did the Boys' and Girls' indoor Track teams. The Boys' Outdoor Track team also won First in that season. Also, the Girls' Swim team won their section in 2013–14. In 2015–2016, the Baseball team finished in 3rd at the AA state tournament to go along with a team record 17 wins, while the Girls' Soccer team finished 2nd. Swim team again won VHSL championships in 2017, this time both in the Boys' and Girls' categories. In 2017, the Baseball team captured the AA state crown, defeating rival Goochland 3–1. In 2017, Boys' soccer won the school's first VHSL 2A Boys' Soccer State Championship, ending the season on a dominant 9 game winning streak that firmly asserted the program's spot in the top-tier of the Richmond area soccer.

Dual enrollment

MLWGSGIS is in a partnership with

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virgini ...

(VCU), meaning that students can earn college credit for certain "dual enrollment" high school classes. This also allows MLWGSGIS students access to VCU's library system.

Alumni

* Bob Dandridge '65, professional basketball player *

Emmanuel Pratt Emmanuel Pratt is an American Urban Designer. In 2009 he co-founded the Sweet Water Foundation, which practices "Regenerative Neighborhood Development" on the South Side of Chicago. The foundation is centered around bringing inter-generational ...

'95, urban designer & 2019 MacArthur Fellow *

Sara Schaefer Sara Schaefer (born July 10, 1978) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, and author. Personal life Schaefer was raised in Midlothian, Virginia, the daughter of Billie and William "Bill" Schaefer. Her mother started the charity Pennies for He ...

'96, Emmy award-winning writer and comedian *

Colin Van Ostern Colin Van Ostern (born Kevin Colin O’Loughlin; February 14, 1979), is an American businessman and politician who served on the New Hampshire Executive Council from 2013 to 2017, where he represented the state's second district. He is a member o ...

'96, politician *

Mohammad Alavi (game developer) Mohammad Alavi ( fa, محمد علوی, ) is an Iranian-American video game developer who formerly worked at Respawn Entertainment. He is best known for his critically acclaimed work on the ''Call of Duty'' series at Infinity Ward, creating th ...

'98 *

Jenny Han Jenny Han is an American author of young adult fiction and children's fiction. She is best known for writing the '' To All the Boys'' series and ''The Summer I Turned Pretty'' trilogy, which were adapted into a film series and TV series, respec ...

'98, New York Times bestselling author * Jillian Johnson '99, Mayor Pro Tempore for the City of

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

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'99, founder of Stonemaier Games and designer of

Scythe (board game) ''Scythe'' is a board game for one to five players designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games in 2016. Set in an alternate history version of 1920s Europe, players control factions that produce resources, develop economic infr ...

* Esther Erb '04, long-distance runner *

Marguerite Bennett Marguerite Bennett (born 1988) is an American comic book writer. She has worked on '' Bombshells'', '' Angela'', ''Josie and the Pussycats'', and her creator-owned books ''InSeXts'' and ''Animosity''. Her work has been recognised for her depicti ...

'06, comic book writer *Will Roberts '08, former minor league baseball pitcher *

Cheta Emba Cheta Emba (born July 16, 1993) is an American rugby union player. Biography Emba attended Maggie L. Walker Governor's School, she was a goalkeeper on the soccer team and a forward on the basketball team. She played soccer and began her rugby ...

'11, rugby union player * Lucy Dacus '13, musician

Notes

: This number is calculated by dividing the 2017-2018 enrollment of 751"Why choose MLWGS?"
''Maggie Walker Governor's School''. Retrieved on 2017-09-03. by 4 for an average class size of about 188, then dividing that number into the same year's applicant pool of 1160 to get a percentage between 16 and 17 percent.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Maggie L. Governor's School For Government And International Studies School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Public high schools in Virginia Art Deco architecture in Virginia School buildings completed in 1938 Magnet schools in Virginia NCSSS schools High schools in Richmond, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Richmond, Virginia Historically segregated African-American schools in Virginia Educational institutions established in 1991 1991 establishments in Virginia