Jackson-Reed High School (formerly known as Woodrow Wilson High School) is a public high school in Washington, DC. It serves grades 9 through 12 as part of the District of Columbia Public Schools.

Venue: Jackson-Reed High School
Town: Washington, D.C., US

Jackson-Reed High School (formerly known as Woodrow Wilson High School) is a public high school in Washington, DC. It serves grades 9 through 12 as part of the District of Columbia Public Schools. The school sits in the Tenleytown neighborhood, at the intersection of Chesapeake Street and Nebraska Avenue, NW. Although it primarily serves students in Washington's Ward 3, nearly 30% of the student body lives outside the school's district boundaries. Opened in 1935, the school was originally named for Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. It was renamed in 2022 for Edna Burke Jackson, the school's first African American teacher, and Vincent Reed, its first African American principal. The school building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 and renovated in 2010-2011. What is now Jackson-Reed High School was built on a patch of land acquired in 1930, known by the neighboring Tenleytowners as "French's Woods." In March 1934, DC commissioners awarded the contract to build the school to the lowest bidder: McCloskey and Co. of Philadelphia. The building was completed for $1.25 million ($22.9 million today). The school opened its doors to students on 23 September 1935, as an all-white school named for Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, the sixth DC Interhigh school. The school started with 640 sophomores and juniors, many of whom had transferred from Central and Western High Schools. Western had been running double shifts (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to accommodate students from the Wilson neighborhoods. The first principal was Norman J. Nelson, formerly assistant principal at Western. Wilson High School graduated its first students in February 1937. Chester Moye was the president of the February graduation class. The school held its first spring commencement exercises for 290 students on 23 June 1937. In September 1955, Wilson was integrated for the first time, enrolling two black students in the 10th grade. The same y