Where students graduate as advocates of sustainable practices, transforming themselves and the world.

Coolidge is committed to providing excellence in education to all students through program design, rich learning experiences, and a robust and proud alumni network of after-school and college scholarship sponsors.

Calvin Coolidge High School opened its doors in 1940 as a white-only school after community 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, with more than 90% of student demographics being Black or Hispanic/Latino students. 

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 incorporating the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve peace and prosperity for all people and the planet. 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, staff, and school community members, have worked to roll out a new design model incorporating local and global sustainability issues into the high school experience. They’ve incorporated sustainability issues 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.

XQ Resources in Action

All high schools taking part in DC+XQ used XQ’s Design Journey to bring the community together around a vision for redesign. They also used XQ’s Educational Opportunity Audit to analyze qualitative and quantitative data, including student transcripts. The EOA helps schools identify student opportunity gaps to facilitate change, ensuring all students are given equitable opportunities to succeed. 

 

“This capstone project can open doors for you that you wouldn’t even know. Things that you didn’t even know you cared about. [You] can make a change with the small stuff that you did within a project, and you can have so many opportunities for your future.”

Shamiyah

Coolidge Student

“Kids need adults to help us with resources and support, give us strategies to live our own lives. I like that DC+XQ is not what YOU think is the best for us, but what we BOTH think is the best for us.”

Jabari

Jabari

“With the SDGs we learn about what we need to do to make Washington, DC better. It starts in schools, then spreads to the city, then it goes everywhere.”

Keilie

Coolidge Student

“Kids come up with great ideas, we take those as teachers and make them educational experiences.”

Jay Glassie

Coolidge Teacher

“Any student can understand ‘there is an education around my experience, and I can produce the knowledge around my experience via action research’.”

Nichelle Calhoun

Coolidge Teacher