T. C. Williams High School

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T. C. Williams High School
Address
3330 King Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22302
Information
School district Alexandria City Public Schools
Principal Mel Riddile
Enrollment

2,126 (2007)
enrollment including 9th grade 2,867
School type Public secondary school
Grades 10–12
Language English
Campus Suburban
Mascot Titans
Color(s) Blue, White and Red (blue from former G.W. HS -blue & gold, white from former Hammond HS -blue & white, and red from original T.C. Williams HS -red & gold/pre 1971)
Founded 1965
Rival schools Hayfield Secondary School
West Potomac High School
Athletic conferences Patriot District
Northern Region
Homepage http://www.acps.k12.va.us/tcw/

T. C. Williams High School is a public high school in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Named for a former superintendent of Alexandria City Public schools who served from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, it is located near the geographic center of the city, at 3330 King Street. It is referred to informally as "T.C." (rather than "Williams") by students, faculty and locals. T.C. currently enrolls about 2,100 students from grades 10-12. Ninth graders attend nearby Minnie Howard Ninth Grade Center and participate in T.C. Williams sports and extracurricular actvities. T.C. Williams is part of Alexandria City Public Schools.

The school provides numerous Advanced Placement courses for its students. Every year, dozens of graduates go on to elite colleges, and T.C. Williams has won numerous statewide academic and scientific competitions.

T.C. has a Junior ROTC program, and the T.C. Marching Band travels to competitions up and down the East Coast.

Contents

[edit] History

T.C. Williams, a four year high school, opened first to sophomores and freshmen in 1965, graduating its first class in June 1967. It became Alexandria's third public high school, and became the city's only public senior high school in 1971 after a federal city-wide desegregation order, serving 11th and 12th graders, with the freshman and sophomores attending the two others, Hammond and George Washington. Currently, "T.C." serves 10th through 12th grades, with two middle schools, Francis C. Hammond Middle School, and George Washington Middle School, serving the city's 6th through 8th grade students, while 9th graders go to the Minnie Howard 9th Grade Center. Minnie Howard students still participate in many activities at T.C. Williams, including drama/theater, choir and sports.

Increasing enrollment prompted plans for a new school. In January 2004, the Alexandria school board approved a plan to build an entirely new school building at the existing location to provide more space. The new building opened on September 4, 2007. The original T.C. Williams building was demolished in January 2008.[1]

The gym of the original T.C. Williams building was named after Gerry Bertier, a member of the Titans' 1971 state championship football team who was paralyzed in a car crash and died 10 years later from an unrelated second auto accident near Charlottesville, VA. The newly-constructed basketball court was named in honor of Earl Lloyd on December 1, 2007. Lloyd attended Parker-Grey High School, which was Alexandria's all-black high school at the time. Lloyd was the first African-American to play in the NBA.[2]

During the 2008 Democratic nomination race, Senator Barack Obama held a rally at T.C. Williams on Sunday, February 10, 2008.

[edit] Demographics

T. C. Williams High School's student body is 24.3% White; 43.4% Black; 24.8% Hispanic; and 7.3% Asian. Like many public schools in the Washington D.C area, T.C. Williams has a large share of students from families with low socioeconomic status.

The school's diversity of nationality was exemplified by the dozens of flags in the lobby of the original TC, representing the nationality of each student at the school.

[edit] Academics

The Alexandria school district pays for its students to take Advanced Placement Exams, at a cost of more than $70,000 per year. T.C. Williams offers more than a dozen different A.P. courses, and is one of only a few schools in Virginia to offer a course in organic chemistry. It has been ranked by the 2006 Washington Post/Newsweek "Challenge Index" as one of the more challenging schools in the nation, with an index of 1.494. Under the leadership of Dr. Manu Patel, T.C. was the first Virginia high school to defeat Thomas Jefferson High School (Alexandria, Virginia) at the Science Bowl.

[edit] Accreditation

T. C. Williams High School is a fully accredited high school based on the Standards of Learning tests in Virginia.

[edit] Test scores

The average SAT score in 2006 for T. C. Williams High School was 1,530 (509 in Math; 512 in Critical Reading; 509 in Writing). The Critical Reading and Math combined score was a 1,021, which is a 58 point increase from T.C.'s 2005 average, which occurred in a year where SAT scores on average dropped throughout the United States.

School Year Mathematics Critical Reading Writing Total
1999-2000 476 477 n/a 953
2000-2001 485 478 n/a 963
2001-2002 491 485 n/a 976
2002-2003 495 493 n/a 988
2003-2004 474 483 n/a 957
2004-2005 481 482 n/a 963
2005-2006 509 512 509 1,530 (1,021 M & CR)

[edit] Laptop initiative

T.C. offers laptops to all of its students. The laptop initiative, which began in the 2004-2005 school year, provides every student with their own personal computer as well as campus-wide wireless internet access. The program has been designed to allow all students to gain a basic knowledge of computers.

Students are able to do homework assignments in programs like Microsoft Word and submit it to their teacher electronically. Many teachers now have students create PowerPoint slideshows for things such as book reports.

Wireless access is only available at the school, during daytime hours and also in the evenings at the school's library. Students are also able to remotely connect to the school network through a dial-up connection for two hours each evening.

Internet access is restricted and blocks download sites, entertainment sites, and others that could distract students from their work during class. Access is allowed to websites provided by text books companies that offer additional activities or study guides.

Most teachers allow students to take notes on their laptops and applications are provided to help students in almost every course. English teachers use the laptops to give students extra learning strategies on authors or stories; History teachers use the laptops to show students Web sites with extra information; Government teachers use the laptops to allow students access to local government sites and information or participate in mock elections.

[edit] Athletics

T.C. teams play in the AAA Patriot District of the AAA Northern Region. The mascot is a Titan. The Titans are best known for their boys and girls basketball programs, as well their rowing team who has won state and national championships. The diving portion of the swim and dive team has recently become respectable. T.C. has also won state championships in basketball, football, indoor and outdoor track. Along with numerous state and regional track titles, they were also nationally recognized in 1993 when they became the first ever U.S. high school 4x100 meter relay team to defeat the Jamaicans at Penn Relays. In more recent athletic achievement, the T.C. lacrosse team captured the district title in 2006, only five years after the team was created. In 2007 the Boys Tennis Team won the district title. T.C. Williams Varsity Boys Basketball Team holds the 2008 VA State Basketball Championship title, won on March 14, 2008.

Because T.C. is the only public high school in Alexandria City, and the only non-Fairfax County high school in the Patriot District, the Titans do not have a sole rival school. The Titans have developed rivalries against Hayfield Secondary School in recent years due to the success of both schools' basketball teams, as well as West Potomac High School and Edison High School, which are also located rather close to Alexandria.

[edit] Football and Remember The Titans

T.C. and its legendary former football coaches, Herman Boone & Bill Yoast, were featured in the 2000 motion picture Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington and Will Patton. The movie depicted the consolidation (and indirectly, integration) of Alexandria's three public high schools into one in the fall of 1971. The city's public schools were legally desegregated in 1959, but the three high schools had become racially imbalanced during the 1960s due to housing patterns. T.C. continued to be a state power throughout the 1970s and 1980's winning two more AAA football titles in 1984 and 1987.

T.C. Williams was referenced in the "My No Good Reason" episode of the television show Scrubs. Three actors wearing T.C. Williams letter jackets appear towards the end of the episode. Donald Faison, who plays Dr. Turk on the sitcom, also starred in Remember the Titans as Petey Jones.

[edit] Rowing

T.C. is known for its nationally and internationally competitive rowing program, which has its own boathouse on the Alexandria bank of the Potomac River. T.C. Crew has claimed state, national, and international championships. The program has produced several Olympic athletes, most recently Nick Peterson and Linda Miller who represented the United States at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia.

[edit] Alumni of Note

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Famous graduates of T.C. Williams include:

[edit] External links

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AAA Northern Region
Concorde District
Liberty District
National District
Patriot District