The Commonwealth Governor's School (CGS) is one of 18

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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 ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. The Commonwealth Governor's School is a half-day program for gifted and highly motivated students based on a school-within-a-school model. Unlike many school programs, CGS is merit based (getting in to the program is based on a list of things, each with a certain amount of points assigned) . Students are selected from

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...

, Spotsylvania, Caroline, and

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counties. Students may attend CGS in grades 9 through 12.

Program structure

Enrolled students take all of their classes at one of the six Governor's School sites,

Spotsylvania High School Spotsylvania High School is a public high school in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. It serves the southern half of the county. The Knights are the least densely populated of the schools in the division. SHS houses the only International Baccalaurea ...

, Riverbend High School, Colonial Forge High School,

Stafford Senior High School Stafford Senior High School (colloquially known as Stafford High School and often called South Stafford High School) is a public high school in Stafford, Virginia, United States. It was established in 1926 and is part of the Stafford County Pu ...

, King George High School, or North Stafford High School. CGS assigns students to the nearest site distance wise, unlike the traditional zoning system. It no longer matters if a student is zoned for a different high school, they go to the one CGS decides full-time. Unlike the traditional high school experience, CGS's classes are linked together for a stronger curriculum. For example, if class A assigns a time-consuming project as homework, class B,C, and D will lower the homework load for the time the project takes.

Curriculum

The table listed below lists all CGS classes, note that while math option 2 is called option 2, it becomes a student decision only in 12th grade.

The Culminating Project

"Culminating" is a two phase, two year long research project, repeated twice over a students CGS career. The first phase, or the research phase, occurs in 9th and 11th grade (freshman and junior years). This phase requires the student to find sources, evaluate them, and arrange them in a final literature review (typically a 20+ page report summarizing all sources found during the research process). The second phase is the product phase (sophomore and senior years), where the researcher/student integrates the knowledge they learned from their research the previous year to create a project that solves a current problem or displays the depth of their research in full. Students are aided by assigned "advisors", consisting of CGS site faculty, each year.

History

Sylvia Wadsworth was the first director of the Commonwealth Governor's School, retiring in 2005. Dr. David Baker took over the post after her departure. On May 19, 2010, Merri Kae VanderPloeg was named the new director until the 2018–2019 school year, where Jennifer Grigsby became the new director. In 2024 Tracie Omohundro was appointed director, beginning July 1, 2024.

References and Sources

{{authority control Public high schools in Virginia Magnet schools in Virginia Educational institutions established in 1998 Education in Stafford County, Virginia Education in Spotsylvania County, Virginia Education in King George County, Virginia 1998 establishments in Virginia