Calvin Coolidge High School opened its doors in 1940 as a white-only school after local advocacy to address the growing population of Takoma in Washington, DC. Coolidge was the first school named after the 30th president of the United States. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the school was desegregated in the 1950s. Fast forward to the present, Coolidge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic landmark in DC.
Coolidge is part of DC+XQ, a multi-year partnership to reimagine the high school experience in the nation’s capital. This community-led initiative has brought together students, educators, families, and school community members with bold ideas for what is possible for DC’s high school students. Each school’s redesign is unique because every community is different.
Learn More about the DC+XQ partnership.
Coolidge has a strong mission and culture with a vision for a future to achieve peace and prosperity for all people and the world. Coolidge learners will become leaders who infuse wellness and sustainability practices throughout their lives, regardless of their path after graduation. The Coolidge learning experience includes solving real problems by applying deep content knowledge and complex skills.
Since Coolidge joined the second cohort of DC+XQ schools in the summer of 2023, redesign team members, including students, educators, families, and staff, have worked to roll out a new design model incorporating local and global issues into the high school experience. They’ve incorporated sustainable practices into capstone projects, independent student research, and other pre-professional experiences.
These include capstone projects, independent research, and other pre-professional experiences. In the newly offered AP Seminar course, students choose an SDG to focus on and conduct rigorous action research, which they then present to experts and relevant organizations. Coolidge students have engaged in virtual exchange programs with students from Guatemala, Algeria, Tunisia, and Iraq, traveled to the United Nations headquarters in New York, and traveled abroad to countries including Costa Rica and Taiwan.
