WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Fall/Winter 2025
IN THIS ISSUE:
Le Centre Brown: Building Community and Possibility at WIS
Teaching and Learning at WIS in the Age of AI — a Balancing Act
Global in Reach: WIS Partners with Groundbreaking Schools in Paris, Madrid, and Shanghai
Our mission is to be an exemplary learning community — enriched by differences, informed through inquiry, global in reach.
Our Core Values
There’s a Swedish novel “En Man Som Heter Ove” (A Man called Ove) by Fredrik Backman. Many of you will have read it or perhaps have seen the Swedish and/or English language film dramatisations. By anybody’s measure, Ove himself is rather grumpy. He’s made all kinds of assumptions about his neighbours and is particularly dismissive of the younger generation, deeming them incapable of doing any task correctly. A key character in the novel is Parvaneh, an Iranian immigrant. More about Ove and Parvaneh later!
In May of 2017, I was invited to the Tregaron campus for a series of interviews that constituted the final stage in the Head of School search. Over the course of a day and a half, I met multiple constituent groups, almost all of which referenced the “Science+” building project at Tregaron. As early as 2011, the school had identified the need for upgraded science facilities in particular. However, it was evident that there had been an enormous number of hurdles that needed to be cleared before any building would be approved, not least because of the stringent scrutiny in the District of Columbia regarding design and historic preservation. Fast forward to June 2018. The school received word that its appeal to the Mayor’s Agent was unsuccessful. In essence, we would have to jettison the plans on which so many people had tirelessly worked for years, and start afresh.
Eight weeks stood between the fateful decision by the Mayor’s Agent and my start at WIS in August, 2018. During that period, I considered long and hard how I might go about approaching the seemingly impossible task of getting the new building approved. I was new to DC and its zoning/design/historic preservation approval bodies, but I realised I was no stranger to tricky relationships with neighbours. Let me tell you a
secret: I had, in fact, learned the hard way at my previous school. Naïvely, I had assumed neighbours would be as excited as I was about a proposed athletics facility. I could not have been more wrong. I had to endure weeks of driving past a slew of signs erected by neighbours that were critical of the school and particularly of me, the Head of School. Ultimately, we abandoned the plan to put the athletics facility in that location.
And so, in the first few weeks of being at WIS, I decided to go from door to door to meet some of our closest neighbours on Macomb Street. The first few conversations could hardly be described as pleasant. It became apparent quickly that our closest neighbours did not have accurate information about the school. Indeed, one woman wagged her finger in my face and made a number of intriguing accusations: “The problem with you people is that none of you are from around here, you don’t pay taxes, you drive cars too fast through the neighbourhood, and none of you stick around long enough to see what havoc you have wreaked.” … Or words to that effect.
That conversation somehow nudged me to remember Parvaneh, one of the protagonists from “A Man Called Ove,” and the parallel from a deeply personal situation in a small Swedish town to a project in the capital city of the USA. Parvaneh hit up against very real resistance from Ove concerning her intentions and her identity. I had encountered something not dissimilar. I knew that it was worth spending the time to apologise to my Macomb neighbour. She had faulty information about the school: While we are composed of 108 nationalities (and counting!), a solid third of our families have USA citizenship; the majority of our families pay taxes; Macomb Street is a thoroughfare
not just for WIS, but for many organisations; and, finally, although many international schools are transient, ours isn’t. In a typical graduating class, nearly 50 percent of students have gone the whole way through, from primary to middle to upper school.
Misinformation is as damaging as no information, or possibly more so. Ove had little information about Parvaneh. What he didn’t know, he assumed. And yet, Parvaneh prevailed, breaking down his biases about her intentions and her identity. She saw the best in him, ignored the toughness, and made a connection with him that ultimately resulted in him finding a way to live his life with dignity and as a contributing member of his community. Some Macomb neighbours were uneasy with WIS, not knowing enough about who we are as a school and what we value.
As I write this in the summer of 2025, there is arguably no better time in my lifetime to embrace Parvaneh’s optimism, which is borne in multiculturalism and underpinned by empathy and a desire to understand humanity. Our closest neighbours have to actually be close to us, and not just physically!
This is true whether it’s WIS and our neighbours, you and your neighbours, or countries that depend on each other for mutual benefit and lasting connections that serve all people involved. As always, we will invite our neighbours to come to both campuses this year. Maybe they’ll want to play pickleball at Le Centre Brown’s new court or take in a home game from the athletic pitch’s viewing deck?
Suzanna Jemsby, Head of School
BE INQUISITIVE
Pursue knowledge with creativity, joy, and rigor; be courageous in questioning and seek deep understanding.
CURIOSITÉ
Pour nous, l’acquisition du savoir passe par la créativité, l’enthousiasme mais aussi la rigueur, et par le courage de poser des questions pour aller au fond de la compréhension.
SÉ INQUISITIVO
Persigue el conocimiento con creatividad, entusiasmo y rigor; atrévete a cuestionar y busca una comprensión profunda.
保持好奇
创新，快乐及严谨地求知，勇于探究。
ACT WITH INTEGRITY
Be honest and accountable; demonstrate empathy, kindness, and respect.
INTÉGRITÉ
L’action doit être fondée sur l’honnêteté et la responsabilité, l’empathie, la bienveillance et le respect.
ACTÚA CON INTEGRIDAD
Sé honesto y responsable; demuestra empatía, amabilidad y respeto.
诚信行事
诚实负责，感同身受，友善尊重。
BE INCLUSIVE
Embrace diverse cultures and perspectives; foster a school community where all feel welcomed and valued.
INCLUSION
Nous nous nourrissons de la diversité des cultures et des perspectives, au sein d’une communauté scolaire où chacun sait qu’il a sa place et se sent valorisé.
SÉ INCLUSIVO
Acepta una diversidad de culturas y perspectivas; fomenta una comunidad escolar en la que todos se sientan bienvenidos y valorados.
兼容并蓄
接纳多元文化和观点，共同促进建设一个人人
Q: What’s most exciting to you about the opening of Le Centre Brown and the reconfiguration of many of our existing spaces?
A: remember sitting in the Dacha when it was in its original spot and engaging in a conversation with the Facilities Board Committee about the need for a master plan for the Tregaron Campus. It was 2011, believe, and that was the first time that I heard of the option of reenvisioning our science labs. Over the years, different pieces of the master plan came together: the IB center in the Mansion, relocation of faculty and staff to a more centralized location on campus, reimagining the solarium and the Mansion’s west wing. But the fate of the science labs remained in a constant state of flux, as we proceeded through the regulatory process. With the building approval stalled in that process, it was clear that the rest of the master plan would be put on hold.
When Suzanna arrived and added the idea of dining to the original design, it was the perfect response to the needs of the entire community. The subsequent, hard-earned approval of the plan and the realization that this building would actually come to fruition after a decade of work have been momentous, unbelievable, exciting, and game-changing all at once.
Part of the original discussions with the master plan included creating a pathway across the campus to mark the journey from Middle School to Upper School to graduation. With the relocation of the Middle School to the AAA and the transition of the current Middle School building to our Language Center, we’ve been able to create a pathway for students to enter at one end, move through the campus as they move through their educational journey, end at the Mansion, and then graduate in the gym — a full circle moment. I love it!
This August not only marks the opening of Le Centre Brown, it is truly the opening to a whole new era of learning, discovery, inquiry, and community at WIS. I am so thrilled!!!
“It is an exciting time at WIS — one of continuity and fresh beginnings, of honoring the past and embracing the promise of what’s to come.”
Q: Holistic well-being is a top priority in the new 2025 Strategic Plan. You’ve put us on an important path with IFSEL and have been working to integrate social-emotional learning into the fabric of WIS. Would you share your thoughts around this vital work?
A: Learning and teaching are ever-evolving. They must adapt to meet the needs of students as they develop. Two years ago, I didn’t know that one day I would need to learn a whole new lingo with words like skibidi and slay. For me, that illustrates the changing nature of kids. And right now, believe that there is no greater work for adults to be doing than to make sure our young people are growing up with so-called ‘soft skills’ that actually shape their interactions and ability to serve their communities and society well.
Of course, as educators, content is critical to a well-informed populace, but teaching, facilitating, and modeling skills of interpersonal connection are vitally important in a world where there are more questions than answers. Skills like collaboration, teamwork, empathy, inclusion, and communication, to name a few, will be paramount when students enter the workforce.
I met Nick and Elizabeth from IFSEL (The Institute for Social and Emotional Learning) at a conference and loved the position that social and emotional learning (SEL) is never a stand-alone curriculum but rather one that is embedded in each text, lab assignment, math problem, or badminton game. The work we have done with IFSEL and will continue to do in the coming year will help revise our advisory program, provide training for faculty, and provide consistency across the three divisions, two campuses, and our one school.
Q: WIS is warmly welcoming Dr. Fiona Mayer to lead the Primary School and Dr. Francesca Mulazzi to lead the Upper School, as we bid farewell to our extraordinary colleagues, Lynda Miller and Zarmina Hotaki. What are you looking forward to most as we embark on this new journey?
A: Zarmina and Lynda have truly been amazing leaders and they have set the path for their respective divisions. Fiona and Francesca are walking into two divisions that have been seeded, tended, and given a great amount of care and attention. I am excited to see what these two fine educators will harvest from the work that has come before and what they’ll plant in time. It is an exciting time at WIS.
Q: What are some of your fondest memories or highlights from your time as principal of WIS?
A: One of my fondest memories during my time as Principal at WIS has been the new student and parent welcome events. These gatherings consistently highlighted the warmth and positivity of our school community. was always struck by how our student ambassadors would genuinely and enthusiastically welcome new students, often easing their nerves. The transformation I witnessed — from initial anxiety to visible comfort — was a powerful reminder of the impact a supportive community can have on a student’s transition to a new school.
Q: What aspects of the school culture do you feel you’ve helped to shape or strengthen?
A: I believe one of the key contributions I’ve made to the school culture is the emphasis on building consistent systems. I am deeply committed to creating structures that support teaching and learning while providing a safe and predictable environment for educators to grow professionally. When entering a new school, I approach it as a “health check” — examining staff morale, teaching and learning, and assessment practices. Drawing on my experience, I aim to make small, strategic adjustments that lead to meaningful, positive change.
Q: How do you hope students will remember you?
A: hope students remember me for my consistency and accessibility. I have maintained an open-door policy, arriving early and staying late so students always know I am available to them. I believe I have been clear in communicating my values, expectations, and boundaries. My hope is that when students approach me with a question or concern, they have a strong sense of how I will respond — grounded in fairness, respect, and integrity. The students, staff, and families at WIS have had a profound impact on me. Their passion, resilience, and commitment to learning have continually inspired me. Being part of this community has deepened my appreciation for the complexity and joy of school life.
“The strength of this school lies in its people, and those relationships will sustain you through both the rewarding and challenging moments.”
Q: What are your plans for the future after leaving WIS?
A: My future plans are centered on continuing to work in education with children and schools. I entered this field not for status or financial gain, but because I deeply believe in every child’s right to a quality education and equitable access to learning. No matter where I go, this mission will remain at the heart of my work.
Q: What advice would you give to the incoming principal?
A: My advice to the incoming principal would be to take time to truly immerse themselves in the WIS community. Engage meaningfully with students, parents, and faculty. The strength of this school lies in its people, and those relationships will sustain you through both the rewarding and challenging moments. Don’t miss the opportunity to connect — it makes all the difference.
Q: What advice would you give to students as they continue their journey at WIS?
A: One piece of advice I would offer students is to remember that your K–12 education is just one chapter in a much larger story. It may feel like your entire world is wrapped up in 10th grade or 7th grade, but when you zoom out, you realize these years are only a few pages in a long and exciting book. Keeping that perspective can be incredibly grounding.
Q: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in education during your career?
A: One of the most positive changes I’ve witnessed in education over the course of my career is the growing emphasis on wellness. When I first started teaching, topics like burnout, stress, and emotional well-being were rarely discussed. It was almost taboo to admit you were overwhelmed. In the last 15 years, however, there’s been a significant shift — first with student wellness and now with staff well-being. Today, many school leaders recognize that the social-emotional health of faculty is just as important as that of students. This evolution in mindset is a major and much-needed advancement in our field.
Q: Is there a particular school tradition or event that you will miss the most?
A: One tradition I will dearly miss is Prize Day. I have always found great joy in this celebration, which recognizes student attributes that go beyond academics — qualities such as being balanced, caring, inquisitive, and empathetic. Too often, school accolades are limited to grades and test scores. Prize Day offers a more holistic view of success and values traits that truly prepare students for life. It is, without question, one of my favorite school events, and one I hope to introduce in any school I join in the future.
Q: What are you most proud of accomplishing during your tenure here?
A: I stepped into the role of Primary School Principal in 2019, just months before the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything. Those early days of navigating the unknowns were filled with uncertainty, but what quickly became clear to me was the strength and heart of the WIS community.
Through the challenges of a global pandemic, I knew that the most important work we do happens together. We faced something incredibly hard, and we did so by leaning on each other. Teachers showed extraordinary dedication and creativity. Families offered partnership and grace. And our students continued to grow, learn, and inspire us.
That experience grounded me in the belief that “community” isn’t just something we talk about — it’s something we live, each and every day and especially in the tough times. I am proud to have been part of a school that came through those years not just intact, but connected, reflective, and committed to one another.
Q: What aspects of the school culture do you feel you’ve helped to shape or strengthen?
A: I hope have helped to foster a culture of curiosity, kindness, and collaboration. I have tried to be a leader who listens, who invites reflection in striving for continuous improvement, and who believes in the capacity of every child and every adult to grow. It has been important to me that students feel seen and heard, that teachers feel trusted and supported, and that families feel they are part of something special. have also tried to bring a little Aussie humor and warmth into the everyday.
Q: What impact do you feel the students, staff, and families have had on you personally?
A: WIS has reminded me — again and again — that learning is a relational act. The students have made me laugh, think deeply, and want to bring my best every day. I highly value the rapport I have with our students. The teachers inspire me with their
“I leave a better leader, and a better human, because of this community.”
integrity, resilience, and creativity. And the WIS families have shown me trust and partnership. I leave a better leader, and a better human, because of this community.
Q: What are your plans for the future after leaving WIS?
A: My husband and are moving to Zurich, where I’ll begin a new adventure as the Primary School Principal at the Inter-Community School. We’re looking forward to this next chapter — living in Europe again, reconnecting with old friends, and embracing the opportunity to keep learning and growing professionally and personally. I’ll miss WIS terribly, yet I’m excited for what lies ahead.
Q: What are your hopes for the future of WIS?
A: hope that WIS continues to be a place where students feel safe to be themselves, where teachers are valued as professionals, and where joy and curiosity are at the heart of learning. WIS is such a vibrant, unique place — my hope is that it never stops evolving, while always staying true to its values.
Q: What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about leadership during your time as principal?
A: That leadership is about relationships. Strategy, systems, vision — those are all essential. But if you don’t genuinely care about people, listen with humility, and show up consistently in good times and hard ones, the rest won’t matter.
Q: What advice would you give to students as they continue their journey at WIS?
A: Be kind. Be respectful. Be safe. The 3 Be’s are not only relevant for Primary School students. You have the power to shape your community and your world through the way you treat yourself and others.
Q: What’s one thing you’ll always cherish about your time at WIS?
A: have always enjoyed the daily front carline duty — it became one of my favorite parts of each day. There is something so special about starting the morning by greeting students, parents, and even a few pets! It was a daily reminder of the strong connections that make WIS such a warm and welcoming place. Those brief interactions — a smile, a wave, a quick chat — set the tone for the day and grounded me in what matters most: community, relationships, and the joy of seeing children arrive happily to a place where they belong.
WIS warmly welcomes our new Primary School and Upper School Principals
DR. FRANCESCA
MULAZZI
Upper School Principal
It’s a Joy to Have You With Us!
in Zambia. The dogs are a mix between Labrador and Boerbeol but we still need to do the DNA testing. We named the cats George and Martha right before we moved to Washington State, but it’s also perfect that they are coming to DC. As a family we love to walk, hike, and be outside together. Other hobbies are hand rolling pappardelle, sitting in meditation, and birdwatching. I have had the incredible good fortune to see a wide variety of birds in Panama and Zambia in particular, like toucans and malachite kingfishers. We don’t take George and Martha bird watching with us, though!
Q: What are your initial impressions of WIS, and what excites you most about joining this community?
A: I’m lucky to have interacted with many WIS community members already, and the best thing initially is that WIS students, teachers, and parents speak in English, French, Spanish, and other languages. What excites me most is being able to connect and develop relationships with people in different languages. Head of School Suzanna Jemsby models this too — her focus on multilingualism is compelling and not something have ever experienced as vibrantly in any other school community. I believe we are different people in different languages, and I am so excited to explore that with the WIS community. Moreover, when I came to visit in March, Director of Operations Dale Temple gave me a tour of Le Centre Brown — and wow, I can’t wait to see science experiments in action! Lastly, many students welcomed me and spoke with me in classrooms, in the IB Cafe, and in the study space near the Design classrooms; there is really great positive energy at WIS.
Q: What role do you see students playing in the success and growth of the school?
Q: Can you share a little bit about your background in education and what experiences have shaped your leadership style?
A: My leadership is grounded in internationalmindedness, mindfulness, and students. From an early age, I developed a passion for languages and cultural exchange. My own school district in Connecticut offered five different languages to students, and a Grade 8 trip to France sparked in me a lifelong love of connecting with others in different languages. will never forget that I was the only kid who wasn’t afraid to ask for the price of strawberries at a market in Avignon! I later studied for a year at the Universite de Montpellier, France, and today am trilingual (English, Spanish, and French). Having lived and worked in Morocco, China, Zambia, Aruba, Panama, and Mozambique — such rich and diverse places linguistically — informs my leadership. It means I love talking to and learning with people from different backgrounds and experiences.
Equally important to my leadership is being happy and healthy. My doctoral research explored the relationship between coping skills and burnout in international school principals — and wow, did I get a chance to test that out during Covid! A focus on daily meditation practice anchors my commitment
to mindful leadership. I intentionally cultivate selfcompassion, resilience, and balance for myself and model these priorities for my teams. I believe that the well-being of staff and students is foundational to a healthy learning community. am currently working on a certificate with Brown University to be a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher.
Finally, something that gives me a lot of joy is talking with kids! From my early years teaching English to immigrant students in Rhode Island, to collaborating with student support services teams in China and Zambia, to leading CAS with kids, I have always sought to elevate student voice and agency. I believe that schools must advocate for students and work in partnership with them to help each learner thrive. I want to be the leader of a school where students are seen, heard, and empowered to be a part of decision-making. I am really excited to collaborate with student leaders at WIS.
Q: What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of school?
A: I LOVE spending time with my furry family: my two dogs, two cats, and my husband Mike. My entire family — husband Mike, two dogs Balto and Bertha, two cats George and Martha — were born
requires careful discernment. More than ever, they need to develop critical thinking skills to navigate this complexity. As IB Thinkers, they must learn not only to analyze and evaluate sources, but to approach knowledge with curiosity and skepticism.
AI presents another profound challenge — and opportunity. Classroom learning environments have changed overnight, and while AI offers tremendous tools, it also underscores the importance of strengthening what makes us human: empathy, creativity, adaptability, and ethical decision-making. At WIS, we will embrace the IB value of being balanced: we will help students pair the power of technology with strong human intelligence and integrity.
Most importantly, we will be risk-takers. The world that confronts our students is dynamic and often uncertain, what Zachary Stein describes as a “time between worlds.” At WIS, we will cultivate the courage to engage fully with this evolving world. Through inquirybased learning, collaboration, and an emphasis on global citizenship, we empower students to problem-solve together and contribute meaningfully to their communities.
In short, we will live the IB Learner Profile — and prepare our students not just to succeed, but to lead in this complex and rapidly changing world.
Q: What do you hope students will remember most about their time at WIS under your leadership?
A: Students are at the heart of the success and growth of a school! At WIS, I will learn a lot from regular meetings with the ISU, next year’s leaders Iacopo and Victoria, and other student leaders across WIS. will also meet and learn with small groups of students during my regular Pizza-with-the-Principal meetings. I am always amazed at the unique and different perspectives that students share and the insights to help me serve them better. For example, I had been sending some emails to kids at my last school explaining some changes, and a student leadership group pointed out that I didn’t explain well enough “the why” leading up to decisions. I fixed that and, in my next communication, shared more about some of the behind-the-scenes context that kids hadn’t known about to help them to understand. One other aspect of a school’s success is coming together as a group. At one school I changed our assembly frequency from once a month to once every eight days. Now, there are student musical performances or grade level competitions at each one, so that students themselves lead the connections and community-building.
Q: What are some of the biggest opportunities and challenges you see facing education today, and how will you address them at WIS?
A: We are educating in a time of unprecedented information and media overload. Teenagers (and adults!) are bombarded daily with content that
A: hope students who graduate from WIS, or transition to other schools, will remember that during my leadership, WIS became an even more caring and supportive learning environment. In a world where academic pressures are constant, WIS can be a place where students lift each other up and celebrate collective success. One of my favorite IB Approaches to Learning is: “Help others and facilitate the success of others,” a collaboration skill I aim to emphasize. Above all, I want students to remember being challenged, inspired, and supported — and to have experienced the joy of learning together.
Q: What’s one thing you’re looking forward to experiencing at WIS? (e.g., a specific school event, tradition)
A: am so excited about the First Day of School!!! I have heard that this is a powerful and positive tradition, especially for grade 12 students. They wake up early, get donuts, and go to the Lincoln Memorial to watch the sunrise, wearing semi-formal attire to mark the occasion of the day. The best detail for me, though, is that they bring signs that say WELCOME to other students. I know will be nervous on the first day of school, so knowing that some students will already be prepared to make others feel welcome is a relief to me. This tradition shows me that, for grade 12, it isn’t just about their last first day, but about stepping into the leadership role that’s part of being a Senior.
Q: What inspired you to become a principal, and what aspects of school leadership do you find most rewarding?
A: First, thank you for the opportunity to be part of this wonderful school community. In terms of inspiration, as a youth in secondary school, my teachers observed that I exhibited leadership skills and they nurtured those. This early support and exposure to service inspired me to become an educator and leader, a path that I am grateful for.
I find my interactions with students the most rewarding aspect of school leadership. believe that our engagements are long-lasting and can be impactful, even years later in the lives of the students. It’s also vital and highly rewarding to build relationships with faculty and families as we endeavor to live the WIS mission.
Q: Can you share a little bit about your background in education and what experiences have shaped your leadership style?
A: I am from the island of Saint Lucia. My educational background was grounded at institutions that had empathetic and hardworking teachers, who invested a lot of energy in my learning and personal growth. This educational foundation has formed the basis for continuous development and a lifelong-learning posture.
As a passionate educator who engages actively in inquiry-based teaching, I fully appreciate that students are born curious and full of “why” questions. My experience as a school accreditor with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools has also shaped my leadership style, and I enjoy working alongside the teams that review schools for initial or continued accreditation.
Q: What are your initial impressions of WIS, and what excites you most about joining this community?
A: I walked into WIS and immediately felt the warmth, and from the gate onwards, the pleasant and joyful atmosphere was palatable. The students smiled even to an individual that they did not know. Several members of the community offered to point me in the right direction and asked if needed water — simple acts that show a courteous and caring demeanor. I am excited about joining this community as it epitomises a progressive and very well established institution of learning.
Primary School Principal
We’re So Excited You’re Here! DR. FIONA MAYER
One of my favorite IB Approaches to Learning is:
“Help others and facilitate the success of others,” a collaboration skill I aim to emphasize.
Q: How do you envision fostering a positive and inclusive school culture for all students, staff, and families?
A: The continued work towards a positive and inclusive school culture deserves a strategic and targeted plan. I am pleased that WIS already has established practices that support this. My role would be to establish a positive tone with all members of our community. A warm welcome and smile would certainly aid in building relationships and celebrating diversity. Equally important is the need to ensure that everyone sees themselves as valued members of the community and that their voices are heard. As a school community, we will continue to celebrate and reflect on our successes and work towards improving and expanding beyond our limitations.
Q: What do you hope students will remember most about their time at WIS under your leadership?
A: I hope that students will know and remember that they were valued and seen during my leadership period.
Q: What message would you like to share with the students, parents, and staff of WIS as you begin your tenure?
A: I thank the Team for the opportunity to serve alongside my colleagues and heads and promise to do so with integrity, empathy, and a keen appreciation that our actions do impact young lives.
Q: If you could have any superpower to help you as principal, what would it be and why?
A: My superpower would be to reach out to every student and staff member in a positive and meaningful way.
Carole Geneix Director of Teaching and Learning, Tregaron Campus
Teaching & Learning in the Age of AI: Efficiency & Beyond
WIS teachers have used AI to refine the art and science of teaching beyond the classroom. Thanks to tools such as chatbots, NotebookLM, or Flint, they fine-tune differentiation strategies and lesson planning, or complete administrative tasks more efficiently, thereby creating more time for collaboration, social-emotional learning, and individualized student support. Non-native speakers like me have found embedded AI translation tools transformative, as they allow a fluid back-and-forth of ideas between English and our native languages.
How emerging technologies, including AI, can enrich education
After two and a half years of AI being accessible to the general public — including children — it is fair to say that, while AI is here to stay, its impact has been a complex landscape of successes, failures, and unfulfilled promises.
Fortunately, WIS can rely on the compass of its strong mission, core values, and vision, strengthened by our long-standing partnerships with exceptional worldwide educational organizations to address the challenges and promises of AI in education. At WIS, we believe in a value-driven approach to AI. We also believe that, with proper safeguards in place, AI can be an excellent tool to support great learning and build cultures of thinking.
The biggest ethical concern for us would be to ignore or block AI — something that many school districts did in the early days — giving AI immense power over children without educational guidance. This is the main reason why WIS was one of the first schools in the world to issue an AI policy just a few months after ChatGPT was released.
As a school committed to both research and innovation, we are also confident that AI and other emerging technologies can be shaped in a way that supports who we are, and that opportunities for learning will counterbalance challenges encountered along the way. Rather than a shortcut that circumvents learning, AI at WIS is a way to deepen thinking and understanding, adding more depth to an already robust curriculum — one that teaches students not only knowledge and skills, but also concepts, dispositions, and mindsets. A thoughtful and comprehensive approach is needed amid such rapid change.
This is a fine statement, you may say, but what does it look like in the classroom?
But AI at WIS goes well beyond these utilitarian, task-oriented uses. Let’s zoom into a few exemplary uses of AI in the classroom.
In his Grade 8 Spanish Advanced class on AI and Creative Writing, Federico Pisano incorporates AI image generators to help students hone their creative writing skills and produce literary descriptions. Along the way, students explore key questions such as:
• What is artificial intelligence and how were these images created?
• What is the AI usage policy at WIS?
• What are the different types of description?
¿Qué te sorprendió sobre esta herramienta?
Una cosa que me sorprendió sobre la IA es que algunas veces te genera partes de la imagen que no le pediste (como si hubiera añadido algo que imagino el IA), o se olvida de generar parte de tu descripción. Me di cuenta que el IA todavía está aprendiendo y no es perfecto.
¿Qué te fue útil al usar esta herramienta?
“Create a creature, an alebrije, which is a fantastical hybrid of the body of a medium-sized dog, the wings of a dragon, a beak-like mouth, and antlers of a dear on its head. The color palate should include green, red, and pink with a pattern of stripes and dots across the body and a scaly pattern on the wings. It should be three-dimensional.” - Leonardo.Ai
First prompt: Create a creature, an alebrije, wich is a fantastical hybrid of a body of a medium-sized dog, the wings of a dragon, a beak-like-mouth, and antlers of a dear on its head. The color palette should include green, red, and pink with a pattern of stripes and dots across the body and a scaly pattern on the wings. It should be three-dimensional. —Leonardo.AI.
Second Prompt: Create a creature, an alebrije, which is a fantastical hybrid of the body of a medium-sized dog, the wings of a dragon, the beak of a bird, and antlers of a dear on its head. The color palette should include green, red, and pink with the pattern of stripes and dots across the body and a scaly pattern on the wings. It should be three-dimensional. —Leonardo.AI.
In her Upper School Seminar class, our Tregaron Research & Media Specialist, Lauren Olson, uses an AI lesson called “GrAIdient” from the Center for Digital Thriving, a Project Zero based organization aiming to create “knowledge and research-based resources that help people — especially youth — thrive in a tech-filled world” (2025). The purpose of the lesson is for students to identify, for a particular assignment, the possible uses of AI, and then place them on a gradient ranging from “it’s not okay at all to use AI” to “it’s totally fine,” thereby exploring what falls into the “gray area.” This lesson not only teaches students how to make ethical decisions about using AI in their work, but also gives them a more nuanced understanding of what AI is and what it is not.
The dog represents loyalty and companionship.
The dragon represents strength and power.
Fue útil porque viendo las imágenes que generó y comparándolas con la original, pude ver que me faltaba en la descripción. En general, me di cuenta cuán detalladas eran mis descripciones por las imágenes que generó.
¿Qué te fue difícil?
The antlers represent spirituality as they crown the head.
“Create a creature, an alebrije, which is a fantastical of the body of a medium-sized dog, the wings of a dragon, the beak of a bird, and antlers of a dear on its The color palate should include green, red, and pink pattern of stripes and dots across the body and a pattern on the wings. It should be three-dimensional.” - Leonardo.Ai
Fue difícil hacer descripciones detalladas sin hacer algún error o no teniendo suficiente información para que el IA lo genere precisamente.
The colors each represent different aspects as well. Green for nature, red is for power, and pink is for love.
¿Qué te gustar explorar más sobre estas herramientas o la IA?
which is a fantastical medium-sized dog, the wings of a antlers of a dear on its include green, red, and pink across the body and a should be companionship. and power.
Me gustaría usar más el IA para ver si nuestras descripciones son buenas y precisas. También me gustaría aprender más de cómo el IA crea los imágenes y cómo procesa la información.
At the IB Diploma Programme level (Grades 11 and 12), our IBDP Coordinator, Elke Gannon, regularly engages faculty in case studies shared by the IB, so that teachers and academic support staff discuss a wide range of AI scenarios — from classic academic dishonesty cases like plagiarism to more innovative uses of AI.
bird represents air, the dragon represents fire, and dog & dear represents earth.
What surprised you about this tool?
as they crown the head.
different aspects as well. Green pink is for love.
One thing that surprised me about the AI is that it sometimes generates parts of the image you didn’t ask for (as if you added something the AI imagined), or it forgets to generate part of your description. I realized the AI is still learning and isn’t perfect.
a fantastical dog, the wings of a of a dear on its green, red, and pink across the body and a be represents fire, and
What was useful to you when using this tool?
It was helpful because by looking at the images it generated and comparing them to the original, could see what I was missing in my descriptions. Overall, I realized how detailed my descriptions were from the images it generated.
What was difficult for you?
It was difficult to make detailed descriptions without making any mistakes or not having enough information for the AI to generate it accurately.
What would you like to explore more about these tools or AI?
I’d like to use AI more to see if our descriptions are good and accurate.
I’d also like to learn more about how AI creates images and how it processes information.
Once the final assignment is completed, students reflect on their experience with AI, noting what surprised them, what was useful or challenging, and what they are now curious to explore further. This is a poignant example of using AI tools not as a replacement for learning, but as a means to develop students’ critical thinking, empowering them to engage with AI safely and thoughtfully. The curriculum is not replaced by AI, but enriched through it.
In the Upper School, in her Grade 10 Visual Arts 3D class on Mexican folk art sculptures, Katherine Dyche has students use AI to brainstorm ideas and sketches before making their
own alebrije, a brightly colored sculpture of an imaginary creature made of papier mâché.
Rather than replacing the artistic process, AI serves as a support and thought partner, offering compelling starting points to the creative process. Students document their findings and reflect on their process in their artist journals, highlighting which AI tools they used and for what purpose and evaluating their outcomes.
This unit offers students an opportunity to invite AI into their creative process, rather than fear it will stifle their creativity or prevent them from developing their artistic voice.
In August 2024, WIS successfully completed the very first Responsible AI in Learning (RAIL) endorsement in “AI Literacy, Safety, and Ethics,” granted by the Middle States Association (MSA). As a member of RAIL’s “Founding Fifty,” WIS is a pioneer in the responsible use of AI in schools, as the education world grapples with the implications of generative AI.
To receive the endorsement, WIS underwent a rigorous process to create assets that help prepare the entire school to “stay safe and stay ahead” in terms of AI literacy, safety, and ethics. The endorsement is valid for two years (August 2024 – August 2026).
At the core of this work is the Pace Layer Model, a framework developed by Stewart Brand that organizes systems into layers according to their rate of change, with each layer influencing — and being influenced by — the others. The closer a layer is to the core, the more stable and slower to change it is. This model helps balance the need for stability (slow layers) with the need for innovation (fast layers), which is especially relevant in the age of AI and competing priorities for schools.
The strength of the RAIL endorsement lies not only in prompting us to reflect on what we currently do, but also in addressing all layers, knowing that teaching practices are the fastest to change and adapt to the realities of AI, and that culture and identity are the slowest and most profound. Throughout the endorsement process, WIS had to provide evidence of AI literacy among the leadership team, a change plan and strategy, various policies on generative AI, and a review of our core documents in light of AI adaptation. Overall, it was a comprehensive and transformative experience that aligned our
approach to AI more closely with our values and beliefs about learning.
AI as a Digital Dilemma
It would be naive to think that, now that we have policies, philosophies, practices, and the RAIL endorsement, we are done. Many puzzles remain. How can we both keep children safe and let them explore AI tools? How can we use AI in a manner that is both ethical and sustainable? And how do we address AI biases?
AI is a polymorphous and ever-changing tool, fueled by private investors, giant technology companies, and governments. In this complex
landscape, we need to develop a nuanced approach to AI, one that is aligned with our mission and values.
The good news? WIS is an excellent place to do just that. From the RAIL endorsement to the conclusion of the first “AI Innovators” teacher cohort, launched by the WIS Institute for Teachers (WISIT), the school remains an exemplary learning community in the digital space, inspiring educators and schools worldwide to embrace innovation thoughtfully. At WIS, students can learn AI, and learn with AI, in a safe and thoughtful way that develops their sense of agency over their own learning and the world around them.
Seizing momentum from our most recent CIS/MSA accreditation report and community enthusiasm for WIS’s commitment to sustainability, Head of School Suzanna Jemsby defined it as one of her leadership goals, convening a dedicated committee monthly in ’24–’25. Le Centre Brown (LCB) and campus reconfigurations have integrated long-term, environmentally-forward initiatives and stateof-the-art equipment to create a more sustainable culture at WIS.
So, what have we done and where are we going?
Our master plan creates and stewards open space outdoors, with LCB sited on previously developed land, protecting sensitive ecoscapes. We implemented a construction waste management plan to recycle and/or salvage nonhazardous construction and demolition debris.
GREEN ROOFS
Covering large parts of LCB, including our dual-functioning four-square garden, WIS green roofs are planted with native species, promoting vibrant habitats and providing thermal insulation. Like the other at the Primary School, the green roof aids in water management, creates energy savings, and can offer hands-on education.
WATER USE
Rainwater management has been engineered to the LEED Gold threshold for the site. The new building will reduce water consumption by 25-50% from the LEED baseline for indoor plumbing, leveraging efficient hot water fixtures. Water budget analysis informed the design process.
ANTI-WASTE COMPOSTING
Food waste is a massive global problem, with over a third of food produced, lost — contributing to climate change and exacerbating food insecurity. Composting is now built into all WIS dining with an industrial grade aerobic digester. Our food waste will become environmental mulch.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
LCB integrates renewable energy systems to offset building energy costs. Solar panels on the Middle School advance our efforts. Efficiency measures also include robust skylight and window performance, reduced Lighting Power Density, and lighting occupancy sensors.
REDUCED CHEMICAL AND MATERIAL POLLUTION
There will be zero use of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-based refrigerants in new base building heating and cooling systematic. Low emitting materials were specified for paints, coatings, adhesives, sealants, flooring, and insulation. We have dedicated collection/storage of recyclables.
LEED GOLD CERTIFICATION & EDUCATING BY EXAMPLE
LEED is a holistic framework for environmentally sound building, addressing energy and water use, materials selection, waste management, and indoor environmental quality through its rating system. Students can learn how to create, measure, and live many aspects of sustainability.
There’s no denying it — when you walk into the Primary School at WIS, something just feels good. Maybe it’s Tony’s warm smile at the entrance. Maybe it’s the bulletin boards bursting with color and culture, showcasing the many identities of our school community. Maybe it’s the little backpacks lined up outside classrooms or the photos of students deep in thought, mid-creation, mid-question. Maybe it’s the IB PYP curriculum, gently encouraging students (and teachers!) to slow down, stay curious, and make meaningful connections across subjects.
As a relative newcomer to WIS, I’ve found myself strolling the halls wondering, What is it that makes this place feel so special?
I joined WIS about a year ago as the Director of the Washington International School Institute for Teachers (WISIT) — our in-house learning lab and hub for educator growth. WISIT brings researchers from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to WIS, and each summer, we host an annual summer institute. Now in its twelfth year, our summer institute welcomes educators from across the DMV and far beyond to explore big questions about teaching and learning. I believe there’s a real connection between being a school that engages deeply with research and being a place where a little magic is happening every day.
Here are a few stories that, to me, illustrate what it looks like when research takes root and grows into something pretty wonderful.
Children are citizens — and their ideas matter
WIS has long been the proud home of the Children Are Citizens research project, guided by Project Zero in collaboration with local schools. Early childhood researchers Ben Mardell and Mara Krechevsky from Project Zero posed a powerful question: What if we stopped thinking of children as future citizens and started seeing them as active, capable citizens right now?
(Mardell et al., 2016). The project focused on
listening closely to children, supporting their inquiries, giving them space to make their voices heard, and guiding them to take action to make their community a better place.
This idea is beautifully alive in the Grade 5 PYP Exhibitions (PYPx). Each spring, our oldest Primary students choose an issue to research under the transdisciplinary theme “Where We Are In Place and Time,” dig deep into research, consult experts, and create something meaningful to share. This year’s issues included climate
When we listen to children and treat their questions as meaningful now, we affirm their role as citizens of today who are capable of shaping their communities in real and meaningful ways.
change, artificial intelligence, racism, and body image — yes, all tackled by 10- and 11-year-olds! It’s an inspiring example of what can happen when we trust kids to think big and support them in making a difference.
When we listen to children and treat their questions as meaningful now, we affirm their role as citizens of today who are capable of shaping their communities in real and meaningful ways.
Documentation is a window into learning
In many schools, tests are the primary measure of what students know. At WIS, you get a much fuller, richer picture. Look around and you’ll see the walls telling the stories of our students — snapshots of learning, thoughtful quotations, photos of classroom moments, and glimmers of emerging ideas. Check a newsletter or Seesaw post, and you’ll get a glimpse into the thinking and wonder happening in real time.
This approach is rooted in Project Zero’s research on Making Learning Visible and Visible Thinking (Krechevsky et al., 2013; Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison, 2011). As Mara Krechevsky reminds us, documentation isn’t just about capturing the end product. It helps us understand how students are thinking and growing.
At WIS, this kind of documentation allows families and teachers to witness the learning journey. It’s a celebration, a reflection tool, and a gentle nudge to keep asking, “What’s going on in this child’s mind?”
Making and design thinking are frameworks for learning
A few years ago, WIS partnered with Edward Clapp, a Project Zero researcher who knows a thing or two about creativity and maker-centered learning. One of his core beliefs is that a makerspace is only as good as the thinking that happens inside it — and that the most powerful tool isn’t a fancy 3D printer, but a strong framework for learning (Clapp et al., 2016).
You can see this thinking come alive in our Design Lab, where students investigate realworld problems, explore materials, and iterate
on their designs. In the spring, I stumbled into a group building their own oil rigs (yes, oil rigs!) and wrestling with environmental implications, engineering choices, and the future of energy — all through hands-on exploration.
Play engages choice, wonder, and delight
The Pedagogy of Play (PoP) project — developed by Project Zero in partnership with the LEGO Foundation and the International School of Billund in Denmark—asks a simple but profound question: What makes learning playful, and why does it matter? The research identifies three key ingredients that support powerful learning through play: choice, wonder, and delight (Mardell et al., 2019).
Walk into Macu Yrureta’s PK classroom, and you’ll see all three in full bloom. This year, the three- and four-year-olds created their very own games. They came up with the ideas, built the materials, and carefully thought through the rules. Along the way, they practiced problem-solving, teamwork, negotiation, and perseverance — all the “soft” skills we hope children (and adults!) will carry with them through life.
The best part? Watching them teach their games to their families. Laughter, learning, and love
were on full display. It was a beautiful moment of intergenerational joy and a perfect example of what happens when play is taken seriously.
Learning is for the adults, too
Through WISIT, we try to give educators the same kind of learning experiences we want for our students. We dig into ideas around civic agency, design thinking, visible learning, and playful practices.
Because here’s the thing: when adults get to learn in joyful, thoughtful ways, they’re more likely to create those same kinds of spaces for their students.
What makes WIS so special is that it’s more than just a feeling — it’s a lived experience. It’s
a place where children and adults are invited to think with curiosity, play with purpose, and engage with the world around them in meaningful ways. At WIS, we don’t just apply research — we support it, help generate it, and create pathways for other schools to follow.
And that, I think, is why it feels so good.
References:
Clapp, E. P., Ross, J., Ryan, J. O., & Tishman, S. (2016). Maker-Centered Learning: Empowering Young People to Shape Their Worlds San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Krechevsky, M., Mardell, B., Rivard, M., & Wilson, D. (2013). Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Krechevsky, M., Mardell, B., Filippini, T., & Tedeschi, M. (2016). Children are citizens:
Marisa Alford, Director of Advancement
In 1988, I arrived at WIS as a shy Kindergartener who spoke only English. But then Mme. Galal and Mme. Noël taught me to speak French. Ms. Sein taught me to love books. And my friends taught me how to do a penny drop off the bar on our sand-covered playground. Over the 13 years that followed, my world expanded — linguistically, culturally, and socially — as I grew alongside classmates, parents, teachers, and staff who had chosen the same path, even if we’d come from very different places. I graduated in 2001, moved away, and was lucky enough to return 13 years later as a member of the staff. In the 11 years since, my WIS community has grown again to include a new generation of educators and families who have chosen for their children the same journey mine chose for me.
That journey — of curiosity, connection, and shared purpose — is what Le Centre Brown was built to support. It reflects the values that have long defined WIS and will carry our community forward for years to come.
Le Centre Brown , our striking new interdisciplinary building at WIS, represents a transformative leap in our educational infrastructure, one that promises to deepen community connection and unlock exciting possibilities for learning. This 58,000-square-foot facility on the Tregaron Campus is the centerpiece of the Destination WIS campaign, a $30 million initiative to enhance facilities, grow the financial aid endowment, and strengthen the Annual Fund, though the building itself is valued at more than twice that figure.
The story of Le Centre Brown began long before construction broke ground and is the culmination of more than a decade of planning, dialogue, and collaboration. The road to approval was long and complex, involving sustained conversations with city leaders, community members, and preservation advocates. Through that process, WIS became more deeply engaged with its neighbors and more attuned to its role as both an educational institution and a steward of the historic Tregaron estate.
The final plan for Le Centre Brown is the result of careful listening, thoughtful revision, and mutual respect. What emerged is a facility that both honors the character of the campus and responds to the real needs of students and faculty. More than just a new building, Le Centre Brown embodies the school’s founding vision of being a “pilot school for the planet.” It is a space designed not only to support the academic and social needs of today’s students, but also to reimagine how learning, gathering, and growing together can look in the years ahead.
Since its founding in 1966, WIS has modeled innovation in global education. Over the years, enrollment growth and evolving programmatic needs highlighted gaps in the school’s physical infrastructure, especially in science, food services, and gathering spaces. Le Centre Brown answers those needs, creating modern, flexible spaces that reflect and reinforce the school’s mission to be an exemplary learning community enriched by differences, informed through inquiry, and global in reach.
Even its name — Le Centre Brown — signals its purpose as a connector, not just across disciplines, but across people, ideas, and languages. It is quite literally the center of our campus, a hub that brings us together to learn, create, and connect, gaining energy and momentum as we grow forward together.
At the core of Le Centre Brown are world-class science laboratories and design studios, purpose-built for Middle and Upper School students. These are not simply updates to outdated spaces—they are a leap forward in what 21st-century teaching and learning can look like.
In the new science labs, students will benefit from more generous workspaces, flexible layouts, and space for long-term projects, allowing for a range of experiments that were not previously feasible. The design also includes dedicated prep areas and improved storage, giving teachers more room to plan and innovate.
The new design studios further enhance this spirit of discovery. These creative spaces are envisioned as incubators for student-led problem-solving, where a prototype might begin as a sketch in a notebook and evolve into a 3D-printed model by the end of the week, prominently displayed where passersby can appreciate the process. Built-in glass display cases outside the new Design Technology Studio will showcase student work-in-progress and finished projects alike, turning the act of creation and experimentation into a shared, visible part of school life.
In short, these labs and studios are more than classrooms. They are launchpads for ideas and tangible innovation.
Few things build community like a shared meal — and WIS is bringing that truth to life with a new campus-wide dining facility inside Le Centre Brown. This light-filled space will serve healthy, high-quality meals to students and staff from both campuses, providing a daily opportunity for people to connect outside the classroom.
Importantly, the dining area will be a tech-free zone. This intentional design choice invites students to pause, unplug, and be fully present with one another. In a world increasingly dominated by screens, the dining hall becomes a rare place to slow down and enjoy meaningful conversation. It’s a space where relationships are nourished alongside bodies — where the social life of the school is allowed to breathe and flourish.
The new dining hall will also serve as a focal point for WIS’s broader commitment to sustainability. Designed with zero disposables in mind, it eliminates single-use plastics and paper products from everyday use. Behind the scenes, a state-of-the-art composting machine processes food waste on-site, dramatically reducing the school’s environmental footprint. These efforts aren’t just operational — they’re educational, modeling responsible stewardship and offering students a daily reminder of the school’s values in action.
Le Centre Brown is designed not just for learning, but for connecting. Throughout the building, thoughtful architectural choices make it easy and inviting for students, teachers, and community members to gather and showcase their work.
At the heart of the building is a gallery-style gathering space that serves many roles: a convening room for faculty during the school day and a lively venue for student concerts, art exhibitions, and evening events after hours. It’s an elegant, multipurpose space that honors both the intellectual and creative life of the school.
Tucked between the science labs and the Design Technology Lab are dedicated open collaboration rooms with sunlight pouring in through huge skylights. These open studios are intentionally placed to encourage interdisciplinary work. They serve as natural meeting points where students might review an experiment together, sketch a solution, or simply continue a conversation that began in class.
Just outside, the original Four Square Garden has been completely restored to honor the original vision of landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman and architect Charles Adams Platt. It will serve as a vibrant hub for both socializing and studying, a flexible, open-air space where students can gather for group work, outdoor classes, or informal connection. Notably, the Four Square Garden also serves as a green roof for the spacious lower level.
June 12, 2025
Mel Burnett, Chair, Board of Trustees
Several times over the past year, have had the pleasure of being in the Dacha, newly relocated to the woods just to the east of the Mansion. In the winter, it was a lovely spot for sitting by the fire, and as the trees leafed over during the spring, there was certainly a feeling of the structure being returned to its original environs. Looking out the windows, you see a wall of green, buffeting the busyness happening outside. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the Dacha used to be a thousand feet across campus, leading me to wonder how we find ourselves here.
How is it that we find half of our school community perched atop of a pristine, 17-acre parkland in the middle of a historic, residential neighborhood in DC? What sequence of events transpired between Marjorie Merriweather Post’s ownership of Tregaron Estate, and the Washington International School taking possession of the property? Who was it that first identified the need for a theater? A gym? A soccer pitch? And how were they able to get them built? Visiting the Primary School campus elicits a similar set of questions, as the idea of securing an entire city block at the north end of Georgetown is nearly impossible to imagine today.
So how do we find ourselves on two incredible campuses, with world-class teachers and a thriving student body? We find ourselves here because each family at WIS is the beneficiary of the community of WIS families before them.
Throughout the history of WIS, families have come together to build upon the vision for an international school in this capital city. When Dorothy Goodman started the school nearly 60 years ago in the basement of her Macomb Street house, it was just a few parents coming together to claim a small space in the educational landscape. From that townhouse basement, the school grew quickly, first expanding to rented spaces in churches and, within just a few years, the small community pooled all of its resources and connections to purchase a proper school building on Olive Street. As more families were drawn to Goodman’s vision of educating global citizens for a dynamic and changing world, more space was needed. In 1972, WIS started to lease the Tregaron Estate, and in 1980, the WIS parent community came together again, and secured the funding to purchase the property from the descendants of Joe Davies. There, the Middle School building was added in 1988. The next generation of WIS families
championed the land purchase and construction of the Primary School in Georgetown, moving into that building in 1998.
These successive expansions over the first half of the school's history all happened because the WIS community came together and trusted each other enough to put their money and time into growing the vision that was laid out before them, not only for their own children, but for the many children that would follow.
Once the Primary School was established in Georgetown, the community shifted its attention to the growing demands at the Middle and Upper Schools. In 2000, the Tregaron campus was further developed to add spaces for art and athletics, addressing those critical components of the WIS experience that continue today. Then in 2011, a group of WIS parents raised the idea for creating a new space for proper science labs.
In the 14 years since that idea was hatched, WIS families and administrators have worked tirelessly to deliver on that vision of building a science-centric learning space to meet the needs of the collaborative teaching inherent in our school. WIS families entrusted resources to the school to realize that vision, only to have the city stop their initial efforts. Undeterred, the WIS community rallied again and, in early 2020, on the precipice of a global pandemic, launched a capital campaign to build a 58,000 square foot new building at Tregaron — Le Centre Brown.
I remember clearly those early days of the pandemic, sitting at home, wondering if it was really the right time to start such an ambitious project. The school had never taken on a fundraising campaign of the magnitude required for the new building, and the world was filled with uncertainty. I reached out to families who had supported the initial fundraising effort for a science building and sought their advice. They were nearly unanimous in their message back to me: the world needs multilingual, globally-minded scientists more than ever, and WIS needs that building to launch the next generation of problem-solvers. Their steadfast commitment to WIS’s vision instilled the confidence that we could complete the task.
Over the last four years, have met with parents at WIS, as well as alumni, parents of alumni, and grandparents of WIS students past and present. I have asked them to join me in answering this need, not only for their kids, but for the future generations of WIS students. I have been met with generosity, support, and a shared understanding that this transformational project has the possibility not only to change how the Tregaron campus works, but also to change how WIS is able to expand its pedagogy beyond our two campuses. It is the thrill of future possibilities for our school that has ignited the passion to carry this project to completion.
For nearly 60 years, the WIS community has believed in the power of an international education. The community has come together to dream, has passed those dreams on to others, and then come back together to realize those dreams. I invite anyone who has been part of building those dreams to reach out and join us in crafting what comes next for WIS.
A healthy school community needs space to move. With Le Centre Brown anchoring key student experiences, WIS is also investing in athletic facilities that promote both well-being and connection. The school’s beloved soccer field is getting a functional refresh — new turf, improved drainage, and ample seating areas will make it more functional for players and more inviting for spectators. Whether students are participating in PE, competing in after-school matches, or just enjoying recess, the upgraded field will be a vibrant center of school spirit.
New outdoor viewing areas will create opportunities for families, classmates, and faculty to gather, cheer, and connect, helping to build the kind of organic community that grows through shared experience. During inclement weather, students can still stay connected to the action: Expansive interior windows in the new dining hall offer year-round views of the field, making it easy to take in the action in any season.
Just as important as the formal athletic venues are the flexible spaces that support fitness and wellness every day. With dining relocated to Le Centre Brown, the former cafeteria will be transformed into WISFIT, a physical fitness space available for use by both students and teachers. This evolution reinforces WIS’s commitment to the whole person, offering opportunities for physical and mental balance as part of daily campus life.
Adding to the sense of connection and pride, the creation of Le Centre Brown also has made possible the launch of the school’s first brick-and-mortar store — The Devil’s Den — in a nearby building. Offering spirit wear and essentials, the store gives students, families, and alumni an easy way to show their WIS pride. Items are also available online through the WIS website, making it even easier to represent the school from anywhere.
Taken together, these improvements reflect a vision of athletics and wellness that supports resilience and a deeper sense of community.
A very special thank you to WIS’s Director of Facilities & Operations, Dale Temple, who has steadfastly guided the massive project of building Le Centre Brown with our contractor and partner MCN Build, while meeting the needs of both WIS campuses.
Thank you to our entire Campus Services, Facilities, and Security Teams for all you do.
WIS is profoundly grateful for the Brown family’s generosity during their grandchildren’s years at the School and beyond. In recognition, this building bears their name. Watch for a full profile in our next edition as we approach the conclusion of the Destination WIS campaign. There is still important fundraising to be done, and every gift helps us finish strong.
Why is philanthropy important? That’s an extremely personal and often contentious question, but I would love to take this opportunity to tell you why it is important to my family and me.
About a dozen years ago, when the WIS Board of Directors and then Head of School, Clayton Lewis identified science facilities on the Tregaron Campus as a core focus for the school’s strategic plan, our boys (Jack, Sam, and Brown) were young and still at the Primary School. We took a meeting with the advancement team and they laid out a compelling argument. We decided to financially support the effort, hoping that the new facilities would be completed in time for our children to benefit. The project, and thus our philanthropy, would have directly impacted us.
had two guiding principles for our philanthropic involvement with institutions that have impacted our lives:
First principle – It is important to say “Thank You.”
The impact of Le Centre Brown extends beyond its footprint, enabling thoughtful transformation across the Tregaron Campus. With science and dining functions moving to the new building, WIS is now able to repurpose several of its historic structures — bringing the past into the future.
Notably, the current Middle School building will become the school’s first-ever Language Center, dedicated to smallgroup tutorials and classes that support WIS’s mission to cultivate global citizenship. At the same time, the AAA Building will become the new home for the Middle School, creating a true community hub for students and teachers in that division.
The relocation of the Dacha, completed in order to make way for Le Centre Brown, gives new life to this historic structure. Redesigned to echo its original purposes as a library and study, it is now a low-tech space for conversation, an origination point for Admissions tours, and, outside of school hours, a welcoming gathering spot for events.
Campus-wide enhancements also include improved pedestrian pathways, revitalized gardens for outdoor gathering, and the reimagining of the Carriage House. These changes reflect a deep respect for the school’s historic setting — paired with a willingness to evolve in service of today’s needs.
“ Watching Le Centre Brown take shape has been deeply moving. More than a decade in the making, a discussion about the need for 21st century science labs for our students evolved into the reality we proudly celebrate today — a transformative vision that supports exceptional academics, inspires bold thinking, and reinforces global citizenship and community connections, reflecting the care, energy, and vision that brought this project to life.”
—David Muenzer Former Board Chair
But no great feat comes without challenges. We as a community underestimated the herculean effort it would take to get a project on Tregaron through the regulatory process. The momentum stalled, but the insights gained by the Board and Mr. Lewis along with their talent, vision, and persistence laid a valuable foundation. We needed to regroup. By this point, so much time had passed our oldest son, Jack, was in Middle School.
What initially felt like failure turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The lessons learned opened the door. The opportunity was there for a new Board and the new Head of School, Suzanna Jemsby, to take a fresh look, reimagine, dream big, and execute on the transformative project that is now Le Centre Brown.
My husband, Jack and I were then faced with an interesting question. We knew the need was real. We loved the new design. We were excited and energized by the ambitious nature of the project. But so much time had passed that our oldest two, Jack and Sam, would most definitely graduate before the construction would be completed. Sam would likely spend his senior year living through construction. Everything would have to go smoothly with the fundraising and construction in order for Brown to experience the transformed campus and new facilities for his final year. So, did it make sense to join the effort again? Should we make another financial pledge to the campaign? What’s in for us?
We then had a major shift in our thinking. We have always tried to be generous and supportive of causes we care about and feel are worthwhile. Why were we thinking about WIS only through the lens of how it would benefit our family? Maybe we needed to think about this from a different angle. It was a lightbulb moment for us. From that day forward, we have
We believe that supporting WIS financially is a critical component in how we can say “thank you” to the school that has helped raise our children and enriched all of our lives. WIS has played a significant role in shaping the young men they are becoming. We need to acknowledge that in an impactful way. As we watch the boys maneuver through WIS and college, embark on their adult lives, engage with the world, travel, study, work, interact with their peers, professors, mentors, teammates, strangers, family, and friends, it is obvious they are profoundly WIS kids. There is a quiet confidence academically and socially. When they debate philosophy topics at dinner, when they travel to different cultures, when they speak Spanish with ease, when they are open to other opinions and truly listen, I know it comes from their WIS experience. How could Jack and I not want to say “Thank You”?
Second principle – It is important to leave a place better than we found it. When we arrived at WIS back in 2008, the Primary School was about 10 years old and the Tregaron Campus looked very much like it did before the construction of Le Centre Brown. WIS families before us had the vision and determination to create and build a school, acquire campuses, build sports fields and playgrounds, improve the facilities and the student experience. We were the beneficiaries of all their hard work. Now it is our turn and our responsibility to do the same for the families and students that come after us. There would never be a better opportunity than supporting Destination WIS, the construction of Le Centre Brown and the transformation of Tregaron.
Our family joined the WIS community in the summer of 2008, as young(ish) parents and three little boys. We have all been profoundly impacted, enriched, and forever changed by our experience in this amazing and dynamic community. This coming school year, we begin our 18th and final year as WIS parents and, next May, we will watch Brown join his brothers as a WIS alum. Wow, that went quickly — and we’ve treasured all of it, the ups and downs, challenges and victories. It has been an honor and a privilege.
Le Centre Brown would not have been possible but for years of thoughtful financial planning and the generosity of the school community. The $74 million project is being funded through a combination of philanthropy, cash reserves, and debt financing. At the same time, WIS remains committed to capping enrollment at 450 students on the Tregaron Campus and maintaining tuition increases within typical year-to-year adjustments, ensuring the school remains accessible and financially sound.
Importantly, there is still funding left to raise. Community members who are interested in supporting this transformative project can reach out to me directly at marisa.alford@ WIS.edu to learn more or get involved. Every contribution brings WIS closer to fully realizing this once-in-a-generation investment.
Rohit Kumar Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, & Capital Campaign Co-Chair
Like many of you, I often feel like I have too little time and too much to do. I also love adventurous travel that outstrips the budget. Nevertheless, my family decided to prioritize WIS over other demands on both time and resources. Why we do it is a question I have increasingly reflected upon as we find ourselves entering the fifth and final year of Destination WIS — and as my family completes our 11th year here, with only three more to go.
We do it because it is the only way we can express how grateful we are to WIS for the critical role the School has played in helping us raise Kiera.
WIS has been an anchor in our lives since our daughter Kiera, Class of 2028, enrolled in the Pre-K program in the fall of 2014 at the tender age of three-and-a-half. Somewhere along the way I was recruited to join the Advancement Committee as a non-trustee participant and, in due course, joined the Board, became Chair of the Advancement Committee, agreed to co-chair the Destination WIS Campaign and, along with my wife, made our largest philanthropic gift to this cause.
While I’d like to take all the credit for the young woman she has become, the truth is even the most dedicated of parents plays only a partial role in raising their child. A child’s school — the place where they spend more waking hours than just about anywhere else — is vitally important in shaping their future. This is especially true when a child goes to the same school from ages 4 to 18, as we expect to be the case for us. As I have said a handful of times to others, WIS has been a de facto third parent in Kiera’s development and deserves more than partial credit for who she is today. And while this seems obvious to me now, I will admit that it’s not something I had fully internalized when we were walking her into Marcela’s class on that first day in August of 2014.
In belated recognition of this undeniable reality, when asked, it seemed only proper to do our part to contribute to the overall health of the School, to try to leave it a better place than we found it, and to make sure that the institution carries into the future to co-parent children for generations to come. My family’s participation in the Destination WIS Campaign and my own involvement in helping to lead it are just our way of keeping the faith
with this instinct. Many other parents, across generations of students, have contributed in their own way — whether as classroom parents, volunteers for Grill, involvement in WISPA, or as part of the myriad community activities that support our School.
In my case there is admittedly one more factor at play: I have a bit of a competitive streak in my personality. I don’t know where it came from (maybe my parents or my own school?), but it’s undeniably there. This means that when see a challenge facing an institution that I care deeply about, can’t help but want to get involved and defeat the obstacles that stand in its way. Those are my idiosyncratic traits. Yours may be different — though I have found that a competitive spirit and being a WIS parent are not uncommon pairings! Let’s direct that spirit to always lift the School that helps raise our children.
Like so many things in our lives, our involvement with WIS and the Campaign wasn’t part of some strategic plan or orchestrated chain of events. We just sort of stumbled into it over time. Yet, as I look back, I couldn’t be more grateful for having done so. As the saying goes, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good!
“From the start, it was critical that this project be not simply a building, but a reimagining of the Tregaron campus as a whole, benefitting the entire school. Through unrelenting diligence and great generosity across the WIS community, that goal has been not merely met, but exceeded.”
—Marc Williamson Former Board Chair
Le Centre Brown is more than a new building. It is a bold statement about what WIS values: curiosity, connection, collaboration, and care. By creating exceptional spaces for science, design, dining, gathering, and global learning, the school is investing not only in its students — but in the future they will help shape.
This building will be a catalyst for change in every corner of campus. It will empower teachers to teach differently, students to learn differently, and the community to connect more deeply. It will help shift the school from a place where programs adapt to physical limitations, to one where the environment actively supports the highest aspirations of the curriculum.
It also reflects WIS’s enduring commitment to being a responsible and responsive neighbor. The process of planning and building Le Centre Brown has strengthened the school’s relationship with the broader community, anchoring its role as a civic and cultural contributor in Washington, DC.
Years from now, today’s students will look back on their time in Le Centre Brown and across all WIS spaces not just as hours spent in a classroom, but as the place where they discovered their passions, sparked lifelong friendships, and began to understand their role in the wider world. That is the promise of this building, the doors of which will always be open to alumni, parents, and friends for events, workshops, and much more. It’s already coming to life. We invite you to see for yourself.
The Dacha, constructed when Joseph Davies and Marjorie Merriweather Post resided on the Tregaron estate in the 1940s, conveys mood and history in a way few buildings do. At the time, Davies had already served as the second-ever U.S.A. Ambassador to the (former) Soviet Union and Post had owned General Foods Corporation, while also voraciously collecting art — particularly Imperial-era Russian art.
By definition a Russian-style country retreat, and built to be Davies’ study, the last several decades saw the Dacha’s function gradually convert to a kind of all-purpose annex.
But Le Centre Brown’s blueprints required a shift. A dramatic physical shift on March 30, 2023, to be exact. Construction teams, in an impressive feat of engineering, moved the Dacha from the right side of the Mansion to the left side, into the woods overlooking the Tregaron Conservancy. The Dacha’s weight was some 92,400 lbs (46.2 tons), and, with the steel support beams, the total weight moved was about 135,000 lbs (67.5 tons)!
With that, has come an intention shift.
Reimagined, relocated, and restored, this singular work of architecture has returned to a use more aligned with its original purpose: namely, that of an elegant, yet comfortable sitting room to enjoy the arts of conversation and contemplation.
Over the past two years, teams painstakingly rebuilt the Dacha’s chimney, added a new foundation, installed a kitchenette, and redesigned the interior to become a delightfully serene and stylish space — ideal for discussion of a novel, a ToK deep-dive, a special advisory gathering, or a constituent get-together.
Along the way, WIS has been collecting high-quality curios to add character to the space, such as decorative masks, elegant clocks, unusual vases and vessels, and historic black and white family photos, all mid-20th century or older. (And we’re still collecting!)
The Dacha also, ultimately, will serve as the home of the WIS Archives. That’s appropriate.
As an embodiment of the unique legacy of our Tregaron campus, with all of its personalities and activities, ideas and plans, across time, the Dacha will continue its Cha-Cha with a renewed lease on life.
Each time I take a deep breath before saying my full title, Director of InternationalMindedness, Diversity and Inclusion, I am reminded of my “why.” And each time someone asks, “What does it mean?” I’m reminded that, while acronyms can be quick, the meaning behind them deserves the time to be explored and expressed. IDI is significant, not just at Washington International School, but across this world and its institutions, which we are preparing students to lead.
The International Baccalaureate defines international-mindedness as “a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility to its members.” It’s an awareness of the interrelatedness of all peoples and the complexity of those relationships. Internationally-minded people appreciate and value the diversity of cultures and make an effort to learn more about them.
At WIS, our mission is to be an exemplary learning community—enriched by differences, informed through inquiry, global in reach. We don’t simply “accept” diversity; we celebrate it and we create spaces where everyone’s voices and histories can be heard and uplifted. Adding joy into the fabric of education allows us as a community to learn to connect and respect one another.
This work is made easier by the amazing IDI Team at WIS, and they are another example of my “why.” The team is made up of coordinators that represent the Primary, Middle, and Upper School divisions, as well as a role focused on staff and cross-division collaboration. The Primary School coordinator, Middle School coordinator, and Upper School coordinator lead student-facing initiatives, IDI-focused assemblies in their respective divisions, and a range of IDI opportunities in the form of affinity groups, IDI-related clubs, and workshops. Our staff and cross-divisional coordinator support me in curating IDI professional learning for faculty and staff as well as supporting me to ensure our
Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools Seal of Excellence
families and parent community are engaged in all things IDI. Together, they ensure that the values of international-mindedness, diversity, and inclusion are reflected in everyday practice. When I came here in 2023, visibility was incredibly important and it has been great to see how the team has been visible in their divisions to staff, faculty, and students.
IDI is a lens. This lens allows us to reflect and make decisions around curriculum, admissions, hiring, student leadership, community engagement, and much more. When considering new IDI initiatives, I always consider the range of stakeholders at WIS: students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, board, and our growing network of external partners, and I ask: Am I doing an initiative for myself? Am I hearing anecdotally about how people feel? Or, am I seeking out the information from the community and approaching the “why” with data? Regardless, it is always important to have people at the forefront of your thinking, followed by the questions “What I am hoping to achieve?” and “What will the outcomes be?”
During Black History Month, a West African dance company performed at both our Primary and Tregaron Campuses. One student proudly shared that he and one of the dancers were both from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Moments like these show how the work can make an impact, even if the impact was not expected in a particular way.
We also hosted our first IDI Community Read featuring faculty, parents, and staff sharing their lived experiences. At the Primary School, a “My Body and Me” workshop created space for meaningful parent-child dialogue, with the pre-reading shared with families prior to the workshop. We welcomed an IDI consultant to support our French-speaking students and staff. These examples all highlight that this work lives in the everyday, not just in assemblies and events.
Last year, WIS became the first school in the nation to be awarded the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Welcoming Schools Seal of Excellence for both the Primary School and Secondary School. This national recognition celebrates WIS’s commitment to creating a safe, affirming, and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ students, families, and staff. The Welcoming Schools program is a comprehensive bullying prevention program in the U.S. specifically focused on LGBTQ+ inclusion.
The Welcoming Schools journey has allowed us the opportunity to have deeper conversations with parents and guardians. Through dedicated IDI Drop-In Sessions, book reads, and workshops, we have created opportunities for our adult community members to reflect on their roles in shaping communities both at school and at home, that we can be proud of. This recognition is not a finish line; it is a reflection of ongoing work and a commitment to having a growth mindset. Earning the Seal of Excellence affirms that, at WIS, IDI is not a side initiative. We will continue to work with the Human Rights Campaign this academic year, and I look forward to sharing more with you soon.
Global in Reach
Our students, families, and staff come from over 100 countries. Representation and belonging are foundational to who we are. WIS is intentional about creating opportunities for all members of our community with respect to IDI. For families, we host monthly IDI Drop-In Sessions exploring experiences of students of color, Black families, Latiné families, LGBTQ+ youth, international families, and more.
For students, we offer IDI workshops for Primary School students, affinity groups for Middle School students, and IDI leadership opportunities for Upper School students. As students transition through each division, we start with understanding one another, understanding yourself, and advocating for the community.
For faculty and staff, we dig into data with the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)
to reflect on and guide our growth within each division and as a school. These aren’t standalone initiatives. Each is contemplated with respect to the others we have.
Faculty & Staff Development: Intercultural Understanding and Growth
At WIS, we have been increasing IDI professional development opportunities for faculty and staff that deepen cultural understanding, intercultural competence, and international-mindedness. It has been a pleasure over the last two years to collaborate with the directors of teaching and learning to ensure that a wide breadth of opportunities, both externally and internally, are available for our community.
Last school year, we partnered with national organizations such as PropelK12, connecting with IDI, DEI, and HR Directors across the United States, and with international networks like the Association of International Educators and Leaders of Color (AIELOC). We have also invested in sending staff to national conferences including the People of Color Conference (PoCC), the Black Men in Education Convening, the Asian Educators Alliance, the White Privilege Conference, and the Annual Conference on Community and Civic Engagement hosted by Close Up DC.
Launching the Empower Program and More
Not least, we launched the WIS Empower Program for faculty and staff of color.
Fourteen faculty and staff members across all three divisions met monthly to build community, reflect on the WIS experience, and grow as educators and leaders. We had incredible guest speakers discussing topics such as being “hoped into the classroom,” navigating leadership as women of color, and understanding the impact of the “invisible tax.” The highlight of the program was the “Day in the Life” experiences with 16 independent schools in the DMV. The “Day in the Life” initiative gave the Empower participants the opportunity to shadow a Head of School and see the work of educators in independent schools that run differently than WIS. The Empower Program reaffirms that we believe in our faculty and staff of color and we are investing in their growth.
After a successful year of the Empower Program, it is with great excitement that we also announce the first-ever Empower Conference, taking place December 5–7 in collaboration with the WIS Institute for Teachers (WISIT). This conference will center on international-mindedness, storytelling, identity, and inclusive leadership. We aim to connect educators from across the DMV and beyond to share, learn, and lead together. Elise Stephenson, the director of WISIT, and I are incredibly excited to bring this opportunity to life, and we hope to see you there.
It was especially inspiring for me that two WIS students served on the planning committee for the Project for Change Summit in 2025, collaborating with fellow ConnectDMV founding members across the DMV. We had a group of WIS students attend the day-long summit and return inspired to launch a mental health support initiative for peers. We sent six Grade 9 students to the United Nations Conference at the UN Headquarters in New York. We also sent students to the NAIS Student Civic Leadership Summit in Virginia. These experiences empower students to not only participate in IDI, but to lead it.
Faculty and staff who model leadership in IDI create visible pathways for student leadership. When students see themselves reflected in leadership, they believe they too can shape the future.
There is always room for joy and celebration and to uplift members of our community. There is always more to learn, more stories to share, more voices to uplift. The work of international-mindedness, diversity, and inclusion is important, now more than ever.
What we do is not for ourselves; it is for each other. That is what keeps me and my team going.
In my two years at WIS, the moments of connection — hearing from students, staff, alumni, and families — remind me that we are not alone in this work. Whether you have just joined the community or have long since graduated, I invite you to continue to contribute to the work. We are enriched by differences and strengthened by our shared commitment to inclusion, growth, and international-mindedness.
In every issue of the WIS School Magazine, we’ll talk with those committed to ensuring learning is an active, ongoing pursuit of knowledge steeped in creativity, joy, and rigor — our teachers. It’s our teachers who guide students to be genuinely inquisitive, courageous in their questioning, and intellectually honest as they seek a deeper understanding of the world around them.
In this edition, we connected with Upper School Physics legend, Tony Godwin, to get his take.
Q: Tony, “informed through inquiry” is a basic tenet of the WIS mission. Would you share what that phrase means to you, and would you give an overview of how teaching and learning in physics at WIS aligns with that?
A: I will. Becoming informed through inquiry essentially means using the scientific method. We challenge students to question their preconceived notions and, through labs, investigation, and demonstrations, build ideas that are based on facts and observations. We help them develop a process for challenging assumptions and constructing knowledge. That’s what scientists do.
Often, physics is not intuitive. It has to be learned and many of the steps will challenge how students see the world. It isn’t a set of ideas that can be discovered easily for most people.
Our students become informed through inquiry and our Galileo ramp lab is a good example of that. The aim is to find a relationship between the distance a ball bearing travels down the ramp and the time it takes. It replicates what Galileo did over four hundred years ago [during the Renaissance], which was cutting-edge in terms of understanding velocity and acceleration. The reason this is so important is that it shows that nature follows mathematical rules and isn’t random. It shows us that you can investigate nature. You can describe what you’re investigating mathematically and that allows you to make predictions.
This student showed honed skills in creating this, not just with the lab, but with the presentation of it. This is a professional grade presentation — excellent work and a good example of the quality our students produce.
In Grade 11, we cover a huge amount of material in physics and do loads of labs that teach students to think and work like scientists and that directly help them design an IA at the beginning of the senior year. We graduate students who develop understanding by actively asking questions, investigating phenomena, and engaging in thoughtful reflection — rather than simply receiving information. Our hope is that we’re fostering curiosity and critical thinking for life, encouraging students to explore, challenge assumptions, and construct their own knowledge through evidence-based reasoning.
Q: Are you excited about having the new labs and big design tech and engineering space in Le Centre Brown?
Q: Excellent points. By the beginning of senior year, students will be engaged with the IB Science Internal Assessment (IA), an important, mandatory, and hands-on individual project, where they develop their own research question, collect and analyze data, and demonstrate scientific skills. Can you share more about the kinds of investigations and experiments you do with students and how they unfold, as they move toward the IA?
A: Certainly. The labs are at the heart of inquiry and there are a great many. An important one in Grade 9, for Newton’s Second Law, which mathematically relates force, mass, and acceleration, involves students collecting data for a dynamics cart, then plotting a graph of their processed data using Logger Pro. By itself, the calculations for finding the acceleration are a challenge since they only learned algebra the previous year. This is a sophisticated investigation for Grade 9, as the guiding lab questions require them to describe, for example, what the slope of their graph means.
In Grade 10, we do a mini IA, where students have to design an investigation using a plastic bottle, like a soda bottle, and water. That’s it. They might decide to roll it down a ramp and change the amount of water inside it. Or maybe they oscillate it in some sort of a pendulum arrangement. There are all kinds of possibilities, but they must collect data and analyze it. The final product isn’t as detailed as an lA in physics, but all the essential elements are expected.
In the upper right is a schematic from one of this past year’s projects and, as you can see, the standards are high. This is a student’s investigation from scratch. You see an oscillating bottle that goes back and forth between two springs, with different amounts of water inside at different points in the experiment. You also see equipment which is sending data to the Logger Pro software connector. As you change the amount of water, you get different wave frequencies.
A: Definitely. The preparation for the IA I mentioned above, along with the IA itself, will benefit massively from the new spaces in Le Centre Brown, as students can set up their equipment and leave it set up. Up until now, we’ve had to take everything apart so the next class can use the space. This creates all kinds of inefficiencies and limits what students can do.
With engineering projects, it’s difficult to put structures together. Students generally can’t do it on their own, but you start off with them and show them how to do it, so that they can hopefully run with it. They’ll still need assistance, but the equipment in the large, new design tech space helps. It’ll change the way they approach future investigations, likely with more confidence.
With one excellent project this past year, building a functioning vertical wind turbine with blades that worked took months and multiple approaches to figure out. And some years ago, a former student, Rahul Hingorani, was examining the flight of a spinning American football. We built probably four different rigs to test his idea until we got one working and were able to take measurements. The data he found showed new information about the speed at which you launch a football and the rotation rate. His investigation considered the limit of what a human being can rotate with their fingers, wrist, and forward motion with their arm. It was highly impressive and original work.
Investigations vary year by year, but most times our students come up with something really different and cool. The next step is asking whether we’ll be able to measure what they want to measure. You’ve got to be able to measure something. If there’s no data, it’s not scientific. A eureka moment comes when you’ve designed something that specifically measures the thing you’re after. Having the space on campus to conduct these investigations, more easily keep rigs set up over time, and open up new design possibilities is excellent and helps our teaching and learning.
Please note: Responses were edited from a lengthy transcript.
Photos show Chemistry labs, a student-designed Physics experiment, and WIS Science faculty.
At our core, WIS is a school that knows fluency in more than one language and meaningful time spent in other countries, immersed in their cultures, can transform human beings into inquisitive, empathetic, and inclusive stewards of our world.
We weave our mission’s “global in reach” tenet deeply into our curriculum and daily lives. It’s who we are. When Middle School Principal Randy Althaus returned from our exchange program in Paris this past spring, we sat down for a deep dive into how our whole-grade international programs work, who our partners are, and how the experiences impact each student’s language acquisition and critical skills development. Here are excerpts from that insightful conversation.
Q: We’ve established mutually enriching partnerships with Collège Sévigné in Paris, Colegio Estudio in Madrid, and YK Pao School in Shanghai. Can you tell us a bit about these schools and the relationships we’re building?
A: Throughout WIS’s history, we’ve partnered with various schools in Europe and South America. In recent years, however, we have sought sister schools that are more culturally aligned with WIS — institutions
committed to bilingual education and to fostering global perspectives. In these partnerships, we aim to build long-lasting connections not only between schools, but also among the students themselves.
About a decade ago, Associate Head of School Natasha Bhalla, then Middle School Principal, helped establish our first relationship with Collège Sévigné in Paris. Founded in 1880 and located next to the Sorbonne and the
Luxembourg Gardens, Collège Sévigné occupies a beautiful urban setting. It was the first school in France to teach math and science to girls at a level comparable to that of boys at the time — which is why Madame Curie enrolled her daughters there. She wanted them to receive the kind of education that helped her earn two Nobel Prizes. Today, the school is co-educational and maintains a strong spirit of empowerment and egalitarianism.
More recently, I helped solidify our relationship with Colegio Estudio in Madrid, with significant support from Middle School Spanish teacher Gema León. Although the pandemic delayed the program’s initial launch, we were able to begin three years ago. Founded in 1940 by three remarkable women — Jimena Menéndez-Pidal, Carmen García del Diestro, and Ángeles Gasset — Colegio Estudio has always embraced a progressive pedagogical model focused on global learning, student self-actualization, and critical thinking. Despite the constraints of Franco’s regime early in its history, the school remained true to its vision.
Both Collège Sévigné and Colegio Estudio are secular, bilingual schools that serve students from Preschool or Pre-K through Grade 12. In these ways, they mirror WIS’s structure and values. Culturally, they are highly compatible with WIS and share our desire to foster connections that are both academic and deeply personal.
The same holds true for YK Pao School, our partner in China. A much newer
collaborate, and carry those skills into every part of their lives.
Q: So true. Can you explain how our programs with these partner schools tie into our curriculum and our foundational commitment to language acquisition?
A: Our international exchanges and programs, often informally called language trips, serve as the capstone of the acquisition phase for French and Spanish, with a slightly different structure for Mandarin. These trips are an expected part of every WIS student’s language experience and are fully covered by financial aid.
student develops a research question, gathers field notes, and investigates the topic locally before departure. While abroad, they examine the same question through the perspectives of their host country.
and larger institution, YK Pao School was founded by a Hong Kong shipping magnate to offer Chinese nationals an alternative educational model — one that expands access to international universities and emphasizes bilingual, globally minded instruction. It is a full immersion school, both linguistically and philosophically, preparing students to become global thinkers who can form meaningful cross-cultural relationships. In 2024, WIS Head of School Suzanna Jemsby established formal executive ties with YK Pao School. WISIT’s Elise Stephenson, along with former colleague Jim Reese, also collaborated with YK Pao School’s professional development team. At a recent conference, YK Pao School shared a powerful tagline that reflects their mission: they strive to develop “a global citizen with a Chinese heart.” The school is committed to helping students find their place in a globalized world while remaining rooted in their cultural identity. Compared with their peers, they offer an especially innovative and forward-thinking model.
The stars truly align across our four schools. Each of us is deeply engaged in the question of how to educate students for a global future. We are asking what is worth teaching and what is worth learning, knowing that the answers will continue to evolve. But there are certain enduring truths. We know that critical thinking matters. We know it is essential to teach children to be resilient and adaptable in their problem-solving. And we know the importance of helping them develop the ability to communicate,
To appreciate their role, it helps to review the full arc of our language program. It begins in the Primary School, where students experience complete immersion in French or Spanish during Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten. During these years, all instruction takes place in the chosen second language. In Grades 1–5, students shift to dual immersion: half of each day is taught in English, and the other half in French or Spanish, so core subjects like math are learned in the target language.
By Grades 6–8, students enter our bilingual Middle School model. They study language and literature as well as humanities in French or Spanish, while their remaining courses are taught in English. When they reach the Upper School, most are on grade level in both languages and are well positioned to earn a bilingual IB diploma, a milestone achieved by many WIS “lifers.”
Middle School is a pivotal stage in this journey. The Grade 8 exchange program and language trip — Paris or Madrid for French and Spanish learners — acts as a core curricular capstone to their language study. The trips occur ten days before Spring Break, while students from Colegio Estudio visit WIS in April and students from Collège Sévigné visit in October.
The Mandarin program follows a different timeline. Running from Grades 6–12, it culminates in a two-week trip to China, usually in Grade 8 or 9. Students visit YK Pao School in Shanghai to strengthen language skills and cultural understanding, then travel to Xi’an, Chengdu, and Beijing.
During these trips, Grade 8 students complete part of their Keystone Projects, independent research endeavors with a global lens. Each
For example, one student this year explored the topic of urban planning and light pollution policy. She was deeply passionate not only about human access to the night sky but also about the ecological impact of artificial lighting on animal behavior and habitats. Her driving question was: How do urban planning policies address light pollution in Washington, DC compared with Paris? Before the trip, she conducted local research in DC, analyzing city planning documents, interviewing local officials, and observing light use in different neighborhoods. She paid close attention to how lighting design affects both residential areas and green spaces.
While in Paris, she extended her investigation by visiting municipal planning offices, taking nighttime field notes, and documenting how different areas of the city — residential, historic, and commercial — manage illumination. She noted, for instance,
how Paris’s initiatives to reduce energy consumption often aligned with efforts to preserve views of the night sky, while in DC, the emphasis tended to focus more on safety and surveillance. Her project brought together science, civic policy, and cultural attitudes toward the environment, and it demonstrated the depth of insight that can come from viewing an issue through multiple international lenses.
WIS teachers were there throughout, guiding her in documentation sourcing, note-taking strategies, and refining her analysis. Projects like this exemplify how the language trips allow students to engage in meaningful, comparative inquiry that connects their academic interests to the real world—and helps them understand how similar challenges are approached across different cultural and political contexts.
In every case, the language trip transforms classroom learning into authentic inquiry, blending linguistic growth with critical thinking and realworld investigation.
Q: Wow. Can you talk about how our students build the person-to-person
connections you mentioned?
A: Absolutely. These trips offer students a valuable opportunity to connect with a host family. They stay in the family’s home and experience life in Spain or France not only through the lens of their school group but also through daily life with their hosts. Each family brings its own unique background, which may differ in meaningful ways from the student’s own. While there are often cultural and linguistic similarities, there are also significant differences in how families approach the world, manage daily routines, and reflect various socio-economic contexts.
Each student is matched with an individual host family, spending their evenings and part of their weekends immersed in that household. Even students who have traveled widely outside the United States gain a new perspective. They live in unfamiliar homes or apartments, eat different foods, and engage in conversations that stretch their thinking. Our students tend to embrace the experience, and they return not only more advanced in their language and academic skills but also more mature and deeply connected to their peers.
They have stepped outside their comfort zones. Traveling with parents is one thing, especially when you can order your favorite meals and rely on familiar routines. Living with a host family is different. It often proves more challenging than students expect and demands a higher level of independence and maturity. Most rise to the occasion and come back with a strong sense of accomplishment, resilience, and emotional growth. We notice the difference in how they interact with one another.
In fact, the person-to-person connections formed during these exchanges may be the most lasting and meaningful part of our international partnerships. Meeting peers face-to-face and interacting in an authentic, human way builds empathy and connection in a way that classroom learning alone cannot. Many WIS alumni speak fondly of these trips and the relationships they formed, which often endure long after the exchange has ended.
Q: Thinking about our hosting of our partner school students, how will Le Centre Brown impact the exchanges? A: Le Centre Brown opens up exciting new opportunities for our exchange programs, both in terms of what we can offer visiting students and how we can further integrate them into the daily life of the WIS community. One of the most immediate benefits is the ability to host more campus-based
workshops that allow for hands-on, interdisciplinary learning and cultural exchange. These workshops can take many forms — from art and design to sustainability and global issues — and provide students with opportunities to collaborate across language and cultural backgrounds.
Colegio Estudio, one of our partner schools, also makes use of its expansive campus to offer workshops. A particularly memorable one is a Flamenco class, which combines music, movement, and Spanish culture in a way that is both fun and educational. With Le Centre Brown, we are now able to offer similarly dynamic experiences here at WIS.
In addition, exchange students will have access to our comprehensive, state-of-the-art science and design facilities. These spaces allow students to engage in inquiry-driven projects and collaborative problem-solving that connect to their academic interests. They will also be able to enjoy our newly renovated sports field and the outstanding spectator areas designed into Le Centre Brown, offering shared experiences that build camaraderie beyond the classroom. Athletic events and recreational play become another avenue for connection and cultural exchange.
And, just as at Collège Sévigné, visiting students will join us for lunch in our dining spaces, using real dishes and
silverware. These shared meals are more than just opportunities to eat — they are moments to slow down, reflect, and build relationships through conversation. Sitting at the table together fosters a sense of community and equality that helps our visitors feel truly welcomed and included.
Ultimately, the spaces and experiences made possible by Le Centre Brown will allow our school to create even deeper bonds between exchange students and our broader community. With more touchpoints for authentic connection — academic, social, and cultural — we can extend the impact of our exchanges well beyond the duration of the trip itself.
Q: Was there anything especially memorable from this most recent trip that you want to share?
A: Many moments stood out, but the most recent visit was especially meaningful because our Head of School, Suzanna Jemsby, and our Associate Head, Natasha Bhalla, traveled personally to our sister schools in Paris and Madrid. Their visits helped formally solidify our relationships with these partner institutions. They toured the campuses, met with members of each school community, and collaborated with school leaders to establish new Memoranda of Understanding. These agreements strengthen our
partnerships at the leadership level and lay the groundwork for continued collaboration.
It is also worth noting the important role our faculty play in these exchanges. This year, Carol Geneix, our Director of Teaching and Learning, traveled to Paris to gain a deeper understanding of the program from a curricular perspective. Next year, she will visit Madrid to continue that work and build on what she has learned.
During a conversation with a deputy principal from YK Pao School’s Upper School, she said something that stayed with me: “We are approaching this with an ambassador’s heart.” That sentiment resonated deeply. As educators, we are engaging in the kinds of conversations that political leaders often cannot. By seeking out common ground and building connections across cultures, we demonstrate what is possible when the focus is on collaboration rather than division. These efforts can serve as a model, not only for our students, but also for others beyond the field of education.
When we participate in these conversations and international exchanges, we are living out the values we aim to instill. We are modeling global-mindedness, mutual understanding, and meaningful dialogue. This is what it truly means to be global in reach.
And again, when you’re growing up at WIS, it all feels normal. Then you leave and realize most people our age were not thinking about all of these things happening across the globe.” At Columbia University’s 2005 Scholastic Press Association convention, Dateline received accolades, though not without confusion. Judges questioned why a high school paper would devote so much space to global affairs. Former Dateline advisor Tina Thuermer responded simply, “Clearly, they missed the point of WIS.”
But global perspective wasn’t the only way Dateline advanced. Nordlander, who is now a General Partner focusing on technology and innovation at Google Ventures, also led a pivotal digital transition, converting the print layout into basic HTML for the school’s website, years before most student papers considered moving online. “We literally wrote the HTML ourselves,” he said. “It was basic and clunky, but it was the beginning of something.”
Every week, students meet in Room B4 in the basement of the Tregaron Mansion to write about the world as they see it. Whether covering global politics and climate justice, interviewing local officials about DC transportation policy, or questioning how history is taught in middle school classrooms, WIS International Dateline writers pursue stories that require asking uncomfortable questions, sitting with complexity, and writing with accountability to their readers.
That sense of purpose has defined the student newspaper for decades, as a platform for both journalism and action. Though its name has rotated over the years and its format evolved from print to digital to multimedia, the mission of International Dateline, also known simply as Dateline, has held remarkably steady: to give students a place to use their voices constructively, engage with the world around them, and shape the community they’re part of.
Today, Dateline’s student journalists pitch stories, rewrite headlines, debate phrasing, and build out the paper’s growing digital presence. But the WIS newsroom itself and student exploration of freedom of the press are over 40 years old.
In 1983, WIS students published The Tregaron Times , a print newspaper crafted entirely by hand, its pages written, edited, cut, and pasted before being run off in stacks on the school’s printer. Sold during lunch and advisory periods, each issue reflected a mixture of announcements, puzzles, editorials, and opinion, sometimes serious, sometimes irreverent, but always student-driven. By the late ’80s, are branded paper called The Grapevine picked up the mantle with its own version of school commentaryand cultural observation, including an infamous “Back Page” devoted to humor and games. Then, in 1991, International Dateline appeared. It marked the beginning of a name that would last and a clearer alignment with WIS’s international character. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, the paper expanded in scope and sophistication. Editions grew to 24 printed pages, layout was done in Adobe Page Maker,and content began to stretch far beyond campus.
“We wrote articles about topics like conflict diamonds, local politics, and international events,” said Erik Nordlander, a Class of 2000 graduate and Dateline’s editor-in-chief during the 1999–2000 school year.“These were teenagers thinking about really big issues in the world.
That same spirit of innovation would define the paper in the years ahead. When Phillip Green became faculty advisor in 2001, he and co-advisor Tink Fitz continued working closely with students to refine the layout, voice, and editorial process. “We functioned more as publishers,” Green recalled. “Virtually all editorial decisions were ultimately made by student editors.”
Dateline’s global focus and editorial independence have continued as defining features of the paper. So too has its ability to evolve. During the COVID pandemic, Dateline mailed printed editions of the paper to students’ homes. During the January 6th Capitol insurrection, then editorin-chief Anders Westermann, unaware of what the event would become, walked downtown and began photographing, interviewing, and documenting what he saw. And Naomi Breuer’s 2023 Holocaust education article not only changed curriculum, it altered how WIS as an institution approached accountability and review. Teachers, department heads, and administrators cited her work as a turning point.
As Alexandra Wilding, Dateline’s current faculty advisor, puts it, “Students learn how to tell stories with impact and they see that their words and images can shape our school and the community beyond for the better. It’s a powerful experience to have as a young person.” Beyond a responsibility for editorial decisions, student leadership has extended to the internal culture of Dateline itself. In a newsroom that shifts with each school year, editors and staff have worked to leave the paper stronger than they found it. “It was always really important to me that the next generation could pick up where we left off,” Nordlander said. “Otherwise, what’s the point of all the work?”
That same long-view approach defines the present-day newsroom. Departing co-editor-in-chief Leonardo Sarzi Braga, who has led the paper through a year of rapid digital growth, sees the move toward social platforms and faster online publishing not as a shift in
purpose, but as a continuation of Dateline’s long tradition of reinvention. “What Erik did with HTML 25 years ago is what we’re doing now with social media and digital-first stories,” he said. “The tools change. But the reason we do it stays the same.”
Sarzi Braga, like Nordlander before him, also emphasizes the importance of Dateline’s future workforce, not just its current one. “If we want Dateline to matter five or ten years from now,” he said, “we have to build it so the next generation can make it theirs.”
That idea, of shaping something for those who come next, is shared by Dateline’s new coeditors-in-chief, Cate Taylor and Tindra Jemsby (Class of 2026), who are beginning their tenure amid ongoing shifts in student media, technology, and school life. “There’s a lot that’s changing about how we tell stories,” Jemsby said. “But we’re not starting from scratch. We’re building on decades of contributions from people who believed this work mattered, and who made it matter.”
Wilding sees the same thread: “Over the past decade, I’ve seen each group find new ways to build and grow as a team. It’s honestly one of the greatest parts of my job, watching students find and tell stories that matter to them and use media in creative ways to connect with the world around them.”
In Room B4, students still gather to pitch, edit, and publish. The whiteboard still fills with deadlines. The drafts still draw margin notes. And while the tools have changed, the guiding principles haven’t. Through decades of redesigns, editorial shifts, and evolving platforms, the purpose of Dateline has remained remarkably steady. It has offered students a platform not only to report on their world, but to shape it, through storytelling, scrutiny, and shared reflection. The names on the bylines may change, but the values hold. In 1983, a WIS student flipped through the school paper and saw their world reflected back at them. Over 40 years later, not much has changed in that regard, and that’s exactly the point.
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Make a deal with the (RED) Devil at our new school store.
These investments are not just about winning more games — they’re about building character, creating inclusive spaces for all students to thrive, and helping every child develop the confidence, resilience, and habits of well-being that will serve them for life.
There’s a truth across sports that can be tough to stomach: not all players will get the same amount of time on the court or field.
Most players find a constructive way to deal with this when it happens to them, often with the support of their coaches, but only a handful make a decision to lead off the court. During volleyball season last year, I was struck by the character, sportsmanship, and spirit of a Boys Varsity player who decided to show up to every single practice and game with a great attitude. He became the motivator of the team — always cheering, helping to set the tone, and supporting his teammates.
At the end of the season, he earned the Coaches Award. Multiple parents came up to me after the banquet to say how powerful it was to see that kind of commitment and leadership recognized. It was a great reminder that sports at WIS aren’t just about minutes on the court — they’re about learning life skills like resilience, teamwork, and character.
At Washington International School, we’ve always believed that athletics are more than just games. They’re powerful experiences that shape integrity, build community, and promote lifelong wellness. This year, we’re entering a new era for athletics at WIS, one
Athletics at WIS: A Program on the Rise
Our athletics program is growing, both in participation and in the range of offerings. Hundreds of students participate annually across three seasons of competitive sports, and we’re continually working to create new opportunities for them to thrive. Recent years have seen the addition of teams, expanded access to sports like volleyball, tennis, and track & field, and a record number of championship titles across the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference (PVAC).
But what excites me most is not just the growth in numbers — it’s the growing sense of pride and community around athletics at WIS. Our student-athletes are learning to lead, to collaborate across cultures, and to challenge themselves in healthy and meaningful ways. That’s the kind of growth that lasts a lifetime.
that reflects not only the growth of our programs, but also our renewed commitment to the health and well-being of every student. With the long-awaited opening of our new sports field and the state-of-the-art WISFIT fitness center, we’re laying the foundation — literally and figuratively — for a stronger, more vibrant athletics culture.
The New Field: Expanding Possibilities and Opportunities
The opening of the new field is a true gamechanger for our student-athletes. For years, space constraints limited both the number of teams we could support and the quality of their training environments. Now, with a dedicated, professional-grade playing surface, we can not only expand participation, but also elevate the level of competition.
Having this home field allows our Upper and Middle School soccer teams to schedule more games at WIS, creating a true homefield advantage and bringing our community closer together. Students will take pride in representing their school on a field they can call their own. The new space also improves practice scheduling, meaning less time lost to travel and more efficient use of student-athletes’ valuable time.
Alongside the new field, the launch of the WISFIT fitness center marks a significant step in promoting student health and well-being. This isn’t just a gym — it’s a space designed to empower students with the knowledge and habits they need to lead healthy, balanced lives.
Whether it’s strength training to prevent injuries, conditioning to improve performance, or simply finding a place to unwind and move during a busy day, the WISFIT center is a resource for all students, not just our competitive athletes. Our goal is to foster a culture where physical activity is seen as a foundation for success, both academically and personally.
This is an exciting time for WIS Athletics. With new facilities, a growing community of passionate coaches and student-athletes, and a shared vision for the future, we are redefining what’s possible. These investments are not just about winning more games — they’re about building character, creating inclusive spaces for all students to thrive, and helping every child develop the confidence, resilience, and habits of well-being that will serve them for life.
We’re proud of where we’ve been in the past year and even more excited about where we’re going.
WIS is kicking off a Class Notes section in its newly relaunched School Magazine. We’ve seen so many of our alumni at amazing events in London, New York, and Washington, DC, this year!
Please take a moment to share your brief updates via QR code for the next Magazine edition, Spring/Summer, out in March 2026. Just a note about what’s happening in your life or a bit of WIStory you’d like to share. And, 2026 isn’t just any year — it’s WIS’s 60th Anniversary and we’ve got big plans! Drop us a line. We always want to hear from you.
1986 Liz Hunt is married with two children, Ben and Lucy. Living in the UK and working as a consultant anaesthesiologist, she still visits DC regularly. Liz fondly remembers “playing football on the banana field.”
1994 Miranda Straatman mom and government employee, spends time enjoying hobbies that include yoga, reading, cooking and eating with friends, travel, arts, and crystal collecting on walks with her dog at the beach or in the woods. Memories of WIS? She “loved the hill in wintertime, sledding downhill, the musicals I was in, Sinterklaas in the Dacha, closeness between students, all the sports after school — so many good memories of my time at WIS.”
1997 Nawel Bailey Rojkjaer worked as a commercial litigator and policy specialist for a number of years after earning political science and law degrees at McGill University, then moved into international affairs for a large multinational corporation. Nawel noted, “I moved around a lot
private investigator for the last nine years. Jon shared that in his spare time he still plays soccer, practices aviation photography, cooks and bakes, enjoys woodworking, and, not least, is working his way towards a pilot’s license. “It’s hard to pick a favorite WIS memory since there are so many, but often think back to the bus rides to and from soccer games and talking with friends at lunch and during free periods — Vace’s pizza days. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to really appreciate how wonderful all my teachers were at WIS and just the memories of taking their classes.”
2011 Michelle Antebi is currently living in Paris and spending time with other WIS alums. (We love to hear this!)
2011 Emmanuelle Allongue is currently wrapping up 27 months of Peace Corps service in Guyana. “I was first inspired to join the Peace Corps by WIS staff members Nick Loewen and Tina Thuermer and then by WIS alum Veronica Ferris ‘11, who all served. Mr. Loewen also chaperoned a service trip did with WIS to Mali when I was in the 10th grade, which was an incredible experience.”
for work: Lyon, Zurich, Pittsburgh, Reykjavik, Toronto, and Montreal. I am now married, with 4 kids, a stepdaughter, and an Airedale, living in Copenhagen and working in the fields of business and human rights.”
1997 Katharina Schiller, thinking about WIS, shared that she “loved the Florida trip!” (Beaches? Sunshine? Tell us more, Katharina.)
2000 Cindy Baerveldt-Grötzinger shared that it’s “great to be looking back on the WIS memories: back then, a Dutch teenager chewing gum all the time, chilling with great lifetime friends. Miss you guys!” She’s now married, a mom of three, and running her own business. “Would LOVE to see you all again! Hugs to you all.”
2001 Jennifer Wijnrn has been living back in The Netherlands since 2002, with a career in procurement. She has an 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter, and reports that “Life is good! ”
2006 Jon Snoek married his wonderful wife whom he met in DC in 2023 and he’s been working as a
2016 Sasha Matera-Vatnick is diving into a newly discovered hobby: open water swimming!
2017 Timothy Breuer is in LA, now working at Amazon MGM Studios making consumer products for their movies and shows (e.g., merch and product collaborations). His favorite WIS memory “was by far the senior roast.”
2017 Eric Omorogieva graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a Masters in International Relations and is now working in DC on technology policy and US-China competition.
2018 Mylena Brown in thinking about favorite WIS memories, shared that: “The 10th grade New Orleans trip is still one of my favorites — such a meaningful and memorable experience! I have been to New Orleans several times since, and I carry the knowledge I gained from that first trip with me whenever I’m there.”
2012 Sophie Crochet graduated with her MBA from the distinguished global business school INSEAD in June 2025. Congratulations, Sophie!
2012 Lotje Mulder is now an MD and PhD student in the Netherlands.
2019 Holden Davitian is not only a former WIS student, but a current WIS faculty!
2019 Pablo Peltier is “playing 6th division football in Italy and saving
the team from relegation” — while pursuing his masters in arts management.
2020 Celeste Bloom lives in Philadelphia where she’s a college and career coordinator for an education non-profit.
2020 Peter Laursen is working in New York City, “playing soccer as much as I can (go Red Devils!!), and meeting up with other WIS alums in the city.” His favorite WIS memory? “Any of the Varsity soccer games on our home field. Dressing up with a red tie alongside all my friends/teammates and seeing so many people from the school standing outside the triple A cheering us on. That is a feeling that will stay with me forever.”
2020 Fabrice Gray is in New York working as a consulting analyst at Huron Consulting Group.
2021 David Allen won the D3 College Ultimate Frisbee National Championship at Lewis & Clark and gave a “shout out to the short-lived Red Devil Disc, which got me started.”
2021 Vanessa Schor is here with us: “I’m so excited to be rejoining the WIS community as an assistant teacher for Pre-K Spanish at the Primary School!”
2022 Mila Martin is at the University of Chicago and gives a shout out to “all my amazing friends!”
Every month, Manager of Alumni Relations Nico Ferrari crafts the highly informative and entertaining Window on WIS (WoW) newsletter. Never miss an invitation again — keep in touch with us here.
Andre Mann ’77
Andre Mann ’77 holds a special honor here at WIS: he is the School’s first International Baccalaureate graduate. Recently, he had some time to reflect upon his time at WIS and the impact it had on his life: “The International Baccalaureate Education (IB) is good for the mind and soul. I would highly recommend it to those considering what type of education to pursue. WIS helped me develop a love for lifelong learning. I still like to do many different things. I enjoy the humanities, and I’m still studying French at my “advanced” age. I don’t have a PhD — yet.”
Regarding his teachers at WIS, Andre explains, “So many were great influences. Dr. Goodman conceived the international vision, executed by stellar teachers. Mme. Greenstone provided advice and made sure we learned about great literature, Larry Vincent about music, and so on. Ms. Forster [a former leader at WIS] recommended Stanford University, which had a great impact on me.” Andre went on to attend Stanford after graduating from WIS.
Andre says that his pursuits after college have been “mainly business-oriented.” He completed an MBA at NYU and obtained an MS in Real Estate Finance and Asset Management. He also earned various securities industry licensing qualifications. “I participated in an Industrial Project Finance training in Warsaw, Poland through the United Nations and an International Technology Transfer through the Georgetown Law Institute.” Additionally, he lived and worked overseas in Guyana, South America for about 12 years before returning to New York City.
Beyond his professional pursuits, Andre spends much of his free time volunteering. He is a “mentor to younger students, director of a small arts foundation, director of a virtual reality education startup,” and has “sat on boards of small technology startup ventures, helped advise producers on artists and music licensing, and served as executive producer of the Tribeca short film festival.”
Charlie Pannell ’16 Carves Out Bold New Vision for the London Art Scene
Charlie Pannell ’16 is carving out an exciting niche in the heart of London’s creative landscape. A year ago, he officially opened ST.ART Gallery, a space devoted to uplifting emerging international artists and making contemporary art more accessible to the public. After several successful pop-up exhibitions, Charlie secured a permanent location in Central
London, marking a major milestone in his mission to reshape the traditional gallery experience.
In July of 2024, ST.ART debuted the Actually Attainable Art Fair, a groundbreaking initiative that received attention from the Financial Times for its unique approach: all artwork was priced under £600, challenging the notion that collecting art is only for the elite. The fair featured 19 artists representing eight countries and drew a crowd of hundreds over four days, ultimately selling 52 pieces and reaching an online audience of over one million. With plans to grow the fair into a biannual event and to further expand ST.ART’s programming, Charlie is fast becoming a dynamic force in the art world.
Charlie also opened his gallery to host the WIS London Alumni Regional Event on March 14, 2025, where a big, vibrant crowd of alumni and friends gathered to celebrate each other, WIS, and art! The night’s exhibition was the bold work of none other than alumna Ariel Rich ’18.
From Berlin to Brooklyn to Buenos Aires, Ariel Rich ’18 has followed her creative instincts across continents, blending travel, introspection, and artistic exploration into a distinctive fine arts practice. After graduating from WIS, Ariel began her artistic journey with an artist residency in Berlin, before enrolling in the BFA program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she honed her skills in metalwork, painting, and printmaking.
attention to an issue rarely covered in mainstream media. Maia also has published pieces in The Charlotte Observer, The New Journal, LNP Lancaster Online, and other outlets.
In addition to serving as YDN’s editor of the city desk, Maia is pursuing a History major with certificates in Spanish, Italian, and Journalism. This summer she joined the 2025 POLITICO Journalism Institute, noting that she felt lucky to have spent two weeks “learning from POLITICO’s talented editors and reporters and connecting with fellow student journalists,” while “chasing down lawmakers for their thoughts on the explosive Musk-Trump breakup, Republicans’ reservations about Trump’s megabill, and the competitive GOP primary in Texas’s upcoming Senate race.”
Her work is rooted in experimentation and materiality, often blurring the boundaries between media and inviting viewers to engage with art on a tactile and emotional level. Ariel’s post-college travels through Argentina and Europe further enriched her perspective, informing the depth and nuance of her evolving portfolio.
Now based in Queens, New York, Ariel recently made an exciting return to the WIS community — this time as an exhibiting artist. Her show, Pastures, was featured at ST.ART Gallery in London, the contemporary art space founded by fellow WIS alumnus Charlie Pannell ’16.
Ariel’s practice “explores the shifting boundaries between human and animal, natural and artificial, and the ways these distinctions are mediated through systems of representation. Working across painting, performance, and installation, Rich constructs environments that question how we aestheticize, domesticate, and control the living world — including our own bodies. In Pastures, for example, the figure of the cow becomes both subject and symbol, its form abstracted into a site of projection for human desires, fears, and cultural narratives.”
At Yale University, Maia Nehme ’23 is already making her mark as an investigative journalist. Maia covers “cops, courts, and Latine communities” for the Yale Daily News, having previously covered housing and homelessness. Over the summer of 2024, she embarked on an independent research project in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, delving into the often-overlooked stories of abuse and violence within some Amish communities. Her reporting — equal parts courageous and compassionate — has sparked conversation and brought vital
Maia traces her journalistic roots back to International Dateline, WIS’s student-run newspaper, where she first discovered the power of storytelling to uncover truth and amplify voices. Her work reflects a deep commitment to ethical reporting and giving voice to the silenced. As she continues her undergraduate journey, Maia’s fearless approach and thoughtful lens promise a bright future in journalism.
Pannell ’19 Reports From Bogotá as a Bilingual Foreign Correspondent
Now a freelance journalist based in Colombia and covering Latin America and the Caribbean, Alfie Pannell ’19 has published bylines in NPR, Al Jazeera, Reuters, Miami Herald, Forbes, El Nacional, and more. In recent pieces for NPR, he reported on El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, and, for Reuters, potential deterioration of the FARC peace deal. His work focuses on Colombian politics, society, and current affairs, with an eye toward stories that bridge regional realities with global audiences.
From learning Spanish at WIS to writing his dissertation on the origins of Colombia’s war on drugs at University College London to reporting from the heart of South America, Alfie brings a sharp, informed perspective to his work. Before moving to Bogotá and reporting in both English and Spanish for a range of international outlets, he served as editor-in-chief of the London section of The Tab, the UK’s largest student media platform. Alfie has been a radio host too.
Yasmin AlBazzaz ’08
Shapes Policy, One Conversation at a Time
As a partner at Alcalde & Fay, a leading federal government affairs firm, Yasmin AlBazzaz ’08 is at the forefront of national advocacy, representing public sector clients and navigating the complex world of federal policy. Her work involves building strategic relationships on Capitol Hill, translating local needs into legislative action, and advancing public interest initiatives across the country.
Yasmin’s path into public affairs began after she graduated from WIS and pursued a degree in economics and sociology at the University of Virginia, followed by a master’s in Policy Management from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. With a keen understanding of both data and human behavior, she brings a nuanced perspective to the policy space.
In addition to her impressive résumé, Yasmin remains deeply connected to the WIS community. She currently serves on the WIS Alumni Leadership Council, helping to strengthen alumni engagement and support our mission.
Asked to reflect on her favorite WIS memories, Yasmin is quick to list a few: a class trip to Tours, France, the vibrancy of International Day, and the laughter-filled moments between classes and after school. And, of course, Grill Day still holds a special place in her heart.
Troy Davis ’81 Is Engineering Democracy for a United World
Troy Davis ’81 has dedicated his life to the pursuit of global democracy and
world citizenship. As the President of the World Citizen Foundation since 1998, Troy builds on the legacy of his father, Garry Davis, founder of the world citizenship movement, and his mother, who co-founded the Green political movement in France and Europe, instilling in him a lifelong commitment to environmental and political advocacy.
Troy’s compelling book, Appel pour une démocratie mondiale (DDB, Paris, 1998), laid the foundation for a career spent at the intersection of science, diplomacy, and visionary politics. Today, Troy is working to establish the world’s first School of Democracy Engineering in Strasbourg — a master’s-level program to train future “democracy engineers” from around the globe.
Born in Strasbourg, France, a symbolic capital of supranational democracy and human rights, Troy was raised in a family rooted in peace, sustainability, and social justice. After graduating from WIS, Troy studied theoretical physics at Harvard University, where he also pursued Sumerian, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and world history. He soon realized that the future he dreamed of, one of peaceful interstellar exploration and planetary cooperation, depended not only on scientific innovation, but on a radical rethinking of how humans govern themselves.
This insight led Troy to pioneer the field of democracy engineering: a scientifically grounded, interdisciplinary approach to solving political challenges. Drawing inspiration from Einstein’s thought experiments (Gedankenexperiment),
minors in Arabic and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. She then moved to Turkey as a Fulbright student research grantee and later began graduate studies in peace and conflict resolution.
Since joining the Foreign Service in 2016, Caitlin has held a wide range of posts: from Vice Consul in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2017–2019) to Assistant Public Affairs Officer in Vilnius, Lithuania (2020–2022) to a Watch Officer at the State Department’s Operations Center (2022–2023). Her linguistic fluency (including Arabic, French, Turkish, and Lithuanian) has supported her mission to build cultural bridges and promote U.S. diplomacy around the world.
some of the world’s most remote and challenging environments — including one teaching post 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle and another delivered entirely in cyberspace. Additionally, he served as commander of the 22d Space Operations Squadron, responsible for operational direction of the eight worldwide remote tracking stations constituting the Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN).
Imani Nkrumah Ardayfio ’21 and Inaya Zaman ’21 Launch Nourish to Flourish Philly to Fight Childhood Food Insecurity
Troy blends psychology, anthropology, conflict resolution theory, and systems thinking to explore how democratic systems can evolve to meet global needs. His ongoing initiatives include work on Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, COP implementation and climate diplomacy, and a democratic government-in-exile model for Afghanistan.
Troy’s work is a powerful reminder that a more peaceful and unified planet isn’t just an ideal — it’s a project in the making.
Caitlin Nettleton ’08: A Global Career in Diplomacy — and a New Chapter at Home
With a decade of distinguished service in the U.S. Foreign Service, Caitlin Nettleton ’08 has built a remarkable international career across the Middle East, Europe, and Washington, D.C. Most recently, she served as Press Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar, a role she held until late 2024, when she began a new adventure: parenthood!
After graduating from WIS, Caitlin earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with
Caitlin remains closely connected to WIS and is happy to speak with students or alumni curious about careers in international affairs, diplomacy, or language study.
Dr. David Arnold ’85 Trains Senior Military and Civilian Leadership on National Security Strategy and Space Ops
Dr. David Arnold ’85 has spent his career exploring new frontiers — developing both space policy and national security strategy. Previously a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, with functional expertise in military space operations and nuclear deterrence, David currently serves as Chair of the Department of Security Studies at the National War College in Washington, D.C. He brings decades of operational and academic expertise to the next generation of national security leaders.
Before joining the War College faculty in 2013, David’s 25-year career in the Air Force took him to
A prolific scholar and educator, David has written extensively on satellite command and control systems, space, and spacepower history, theory, and doctrine. Most recently, he edited and contributed to the book Space Force Pioneers: Trailblazers of the Sixth Branch which chronicles the evolution of the U.S. Space Force and honors those who helped bring it into being.
Holden Davitian ’19 has come full circle. After learning French at WIS and earning her graduate degree in Francophone Literature and Culture from Bryn Mawr College, she’s returned to the halls of WIS — not as a student, but as an educator. Last fall, Holden began teaching Grade 1 French, bringing her deep love of language and literature into the classroom with the same enthusiasm and curiosity that defined her own time as a student.
Holden’s passion for education is matched by her enduring commitment to the WIS community. In addition to her teaching role, she also serves on the WIS Alumni Leadership Council, helping to strengthen connections between alumni and the School.
Whether she’s leading young learners through their first French phrases or engaging with fellow graduates, Holden embodies the spirit of WIS, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have her back!
more about
and Inaya’s
In true WIS spirit, Imani Nkrumah Ardayfio ’21 and Inaya Zaman ’21 are combining core values like integrity and inclusiveness with local action. Earlier this year, University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson announced the recipients of the 2025 President’s Engagement, Innovation, and Sustainability Prizes — major awards for graduating students undertaking projects to make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Imani and Inaya, along with their fellow UPenn classmate Rashmi Acharya, were granted $250,000 for their Nourish to Flourish Philly project implementation.
Designing school-based nutrition programs in West Philadelphia, the team will create access points for families to obtain fresh produce from local farmers to address hunger and nutrition inequities, work to redesign school cafeteria spaces to promote healthy food choices, and provide interactive, hands-on nutrition education during and after school hours — including via a school garden and cooking classes. Heather Klusaritz, associate professor of family medicine and community health at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, serves as their mentor.
Imani and Inaya credit their WIS education for sparking their commitment to justice and sustainability, and they’re eager to build something that reflects those values in action. A history and Africana Studies major, Imani is interested in a career in education policy. Inaya has pursued a dual-degree major in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, the latter at the Wharton School, concentrating in business economics and public policy. Their idea grew out of shared experiences at the University of Pennsylvania, where both became deeply involved in the broader Philly community.
Imani and Inaya are especially excited to connect with fellow WIS alumni and community members — whether you’re in Philly and want to volunteer, or just want to lend your support from afar. Reach out on LinkedIn! Nourish to Flourish Philly is a registered 501(c)(3) working to reduce childhood food insecurity and nutrition inequity in West Philadelphia and make healthy eating intuitive, engaging, and empowering for K–6 students.
Dear WIS Supporters,
It’s an exciting time at Washington International School.
We’ve just wrapped up year four of our five-year Destination WIS campaign, and thanks to your generosity, we’ve raised nearly $27 million toward our $30 million goal. As we head into this final year, we’re energized by all that’s been accomplished and all that’s still to come.
Le Centre Brown, our transformational new academic building, will open to students this fall. Across campus, thoughtful space transitions are underway to better support teaching, learning, and community life. And at the heart of Tregaron, after a two-year hiatus, the beloved sports field is finally making its return.
There’s still important work to be done, but we are delighted to recognize the generosity of those who have gotten us to this point. Thank you for being part of this community and for helping us build the future of WIS.
Marisa G. Alford ’01 Director of Advancement
Campaign Supporters
38North Security
Frieda & Pierre
Abushacra
Elizabeth Ahn & John Morris
Abdul-Rahman Akande
Farah Al Hinai
Umou & Mehdi Albazzaz
Yasmin Albazzaz ’08
Kathleen & Leigh Alexander
Marisa Alford ’01
Shannon & Michael Alford
The Alford Foundation
Marcia & Martin Allen
Alexia Minervini & Bernardo Alvarez
American Express
Ameriprise Financial
Anonymous (7)
Stephanie Bagliani
Gaukhar Kaliaskarova & Said Bakhache
Yasmin & Babak Banaei
Bank of America
Charitable Gift Fund
Sarah Alkenbrack & Kevin Batteh
Geua & Thomas Baunsgaard
Sabine & Jan Bayer
Leanna & Jamie Beaber
Holly & James Beardow
Allana & Noel Bejarano
Ana Bellver
Benevity Community Impact Fund
Leith Bernard
Vanda & Matthias
Berninger
Natasha Bhalla ’91
Russell Binion
Serenella & Bassem Boustany
Nancy & David
Brigstocke
Kali Bracey & Eric Brown
Solange & William Brown
Hope Gleicher & Andrew Burness
Jefferson Burnett
Melissa & Jason Burnett
Cristina Mestre & Jason Cahill
Carolyn Campbell
Myra Riggs & Tom Ceusters
Amy & Pierre Chao
Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh & Djamil Fertikh†
Kate & Stylianos
Christofides ’82
Leslie & Rick Cruz
Cybergrants
Samantha Siranli & John Dabney
DAFgiving360
Olivia & John Davis
Michele de Nevers
Cathy Delcoco
Rachel Howe & Giovanni Dell’Ariccia
Tian Liang & Ding Ding
Maria Fernandez & Robert Dunsky
Karen Greenwood & Tim Dwyer ’89
Margaret Allen & Matthew Earley
Elena & David Emmel
Kristen & Felipe Ernst ’10
Isabel & Ricardo Ernst
Diana Farrell & Scott Pearson
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC
Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund
Rachel & Joseph Firschein
Wesley Flamer-Binion ’99
Giorgio Furioso
Sophie Sirtaine & Alfonso Garcia Mora
Tomoko Suzuki & Jose Gijon
Cynthia & Brian Gilmore
The GiveClear Foundation
Anne & Ethan Glass
Elizabeth Polsky & Samuel Glass
Alexia Godron ’17
Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund
Karen & Carter Groome
Annie Gubser
Karen Vossler & Scot Hagerthey
Carol & Richard Hall
Abigail Seldin & Whitney Haring-Smith
Sophie & Val Hawkins
The Hess Foundation, Inc.
Melissa Conradi Hill & Nicholas Hill ’91
Katie & Jack Huffard
Lauren & Michael Huneke
Karmen Parhar & Matthew Ichinose
Tracy Gray & John Iwaniec
Leigh Ann Caldwell
& Gregory Jaczko
Katherine Kinsella
& Edgar James
Suzanna & Björn Jemsby
Cecilia Rios & Arlei Jeronimo
Erin & Scott Jones
JPMorgan Charitable Giving Fund
Nandini Oomman & Sanjay Kalra
Randy & Russell Katz
Sheldon Katz
Lauren & Mark Keremedjiev
Ana Claudia Khoury Lopez & Joseph Khoury
Barbara Stevens & Rufus King
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Catherine & Reza Kordestani
Mairzy & Alex Krulic
Hilary Chapman & Rohit Kumar
Veronica & Adetokunbo Ladejobi
Susan & Clayton Lewis
Kaimeng Huang & Bo Li
Tania Mendez Tarazona & Todd Lippincott
Susan Lynner
Melissa & Khalil
Maalouf
Dorothy & Daniel McCuaig
MCN Build The MCN Build Foundation
Kate Meenan-Waugh
Betsy Williams & Thomas Moore
Morgan Stanley Gift Fund
Melissa Schwartz & David Muenzer
Cindy & Charles Murphy III
The Cindy & Chip
Murphy Foundation
Emily & Keith Murphy
Leah Chang & Ryan Naftulin
Mimi Alemayehou & Papa Ndiaye
Kristin & Edgar Nehme
Erik Nordlander ’00
The Osburn Family Foundation
Munkhzul Otgonsuren
Lauren & Jonathan
Malcolm Peabody†
Marta Hidalgo ’87 & Martin Petri
Anne-Marie Pierce
Jessica Lerner & Daniel Pink
Mary Poole
Solange Brown & John Reppas
Jane Schmitz & Adam Richards
Namandjé Bumpus & Conrad Risher
Flavia Rizzini de Andrade
Gretchen & Michael Robbins
Sidra Rehman & Rosant Rosantsson
Pauline & Didier Rotsaert
Ben Russin ’87
Neda & Nader Salehi
Flavia Rosembuj & Javier Sancho Velazquez
Ana & Miguel Savastano
Stefania Berla & David Schlitz
Judith Schloss ’88
Doerte Doemeland & Carlo Sdralevich
Karina Manasseh & John Sikking
Erin Wrona & Sean Smith
Renata Hesse & Joshua Soven
Emily & Ken Spain
Jessica & George Springsteen
Claire Alexander ’94 & Colin Stackhouse
Hainey Price-Staley & Charles Staley
Djinn & Constantine Stavropoulos
Cathya Wing
Stephenson
Rebecca Kagan & Philip Sternhell
Parker Ruhl & Kosta Stojilkovic
Cristina Gomez & Benjamin Stoll
The Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation
Zeynep & Emre Tekinalp
Tina Thuermer
TIAA
The Ernst & Gertrude Ticho Charitable Foundation
The Tides Foundation
Ellen Tunstall
Deborah Crane & Bertram Ulrich
Michelle & Russell
Upton
Vanguard
Vanguard Charitable
Gareth Vaughan
Larry Vincent†
Katharine & Adam
Vodraska
Roderick von Lipsey
Maria Lucia Guerra Bradford & Erik von Uexkuell
Amy & Kip Wainscott
Carola Mandelbaum & Dahn Warner
Maya Grassi & Toby Watkins
Tricia & Marc
Williamson
The Bruce & Susan Wohlfeld Family Foundation
Laura & Kyle Yost
YourCause, LLC
Nan Geng & Zhen Zhang
Supporters
The generosity of our philanthropic supporters is at the heart of everything we do. Whether through annual gifts, campaign contributions, or endowed support, these donors make it possible for Washington International School to uphold its mission, invest in excellence, and expand access to a WIS education.
We are deeply grateful to the individuals, families, foundations, and organizations listed on the following pages for their commitment to our community during the 2024–25 fiscal year.
38North Security
Olga Ledbetter & David Aberle
Georgina Ardalan & Alexander Ackemann
Luciana de Rosa & Gustavo Adler
Madeleine Deming & Farshad Aduli
Alessandro Ago ’97
Melody Fox & Umar Ahmed
Abdul-Rahman Akande
Funda Gizer Akgun & Kudret Akgun
Ouahiba & Ali Akkache
Farah Al Hinai
Catherine & Hamed Alaghebandian
Yasmin Albazzaz ’08
Hector Alcalde
Karen Alcalde
Yuko Hashimoto & Bruno Aleonard
Suzanne & Anthony
Alessi
Kathleen & Leigh Alexander
Catherine Alexander ’98
Shannon & Michael Alford
Marisa Alford ’01
The Alford Foundation
Amal Alibair
Lani & Ali Alichi
Marcia & Martin Allen
Dalia Hakura & Gerard Almekinders
Janet Althaus
Winnette McIntosh
Ambrose & Ricardo Ambrose
America’s Charities
Ameriprise Financial
Victoria Anders ’14
Elisabeth & Richard Anderson
Anonymous (26)
Kássia Belo Da
Silva Antoine & Florent Antoine
Venus & Reynaldo Aparicio
Lilia Aparicio ’98
Christine & Bach Ardalan
Catalina Tejada
Grullon & Adolfo Argüello Vives
Patricia Caraballo & Cesar Arias
Katherine Brown & George Arkedis
Doreen & David Arnold ’85
Saraya & Richard Arnold
Amma Boeteng & Baafour Asiamah-Adjei
Chunying Xie & Jose Asturias
Olga Kuznetsova & Becher Atassi
Nour Rifai & Nicholas Auger ’01
Robertina Mbedzi & Gbetoho Ayivodji
Michael Ba
Nathalie Munzberg & Robert Bacon
Teresa Baeza
Gaukhar Kaliaskarova & Said Bakhache
Lance Baldwin
Marta Rios & Tomas Balino
Miranda & Roger Ballentine
Nana Banful Afua Banful
Sarah Neuman & Andrew Bank
Bank of America
Charitable Gift Fund
Anjali Dsouza & Mariano Banos
Michaelen Barsness
Alex Kaplan & Olivier Basdevant
Sarah Alkenbrack & Kevin Batteh
Lavinia Mpila & Gilles Bauche
Geua & Thomas Baunsgaard
Sabine & Jan Bayer
Leanna & Jamie Beaber
Holly & James Beardow
Ashley Beck
Clare Beeny
Allana & Noel Bejarano
Laura Esmail & Nazim Belhocine
Tracy Bell ’86
Florence Jaumotte & Louis Bell
Ana Bellver
Benevity Community Impact Fund
Kimberly Bennett
Angie Bernal Castillo & Mauricio Garzon
Anne Bernoux
Natasha Bhalla ’91
Seher Binder-Cirak & Florian Binder
Susana & Kevin Birdsong
Yasemin Biro Kirtman
Kaia Boe ’02
Leonard Boe ’07
Katharine & Don Boehm
Brooke & Thomas Bollyky
Hilen Meirovich & Juan Bonilla
Hannah Nielsen & Fabian Bornhorst
Serenella & Bassem Boustany
Rebecca Ross-Bown & Chad Bown
Mara Mosconi & Andrea Braccialarghe
Karen Brau
Ignacio Bravo
Ann & Christopher Breaux
Nora Brennan
Katherine Myint-Hpu & Peter Breuer
Bright Funds
Nancy & David Brigstocke
Kali Bracey & Eric Brown
Solange & William Brown
Lillian & Henry Brownstein
Rosemary Jeronimides & Christopher Bruneau
Daria & Thomas Brunet
Andrea Burk
Jefferson Burnett
Nancy Burnett
Melissa & Jason
Burnett
Monica Bussolati
Monica Caetano
Cristina Mestre & Jason Cahill
Daniela Greco & David Cameron
Serena Campbell
Carolyn Campbell
Giuliana Cane
Xiaofei Zhou & Yongquan Cao
Carmen Marimon & Marc Caplan
Tanisha Carden
Claudia Cardenas
Victoria Carmon-Brown
Aimee & Michael Carney
Karla Montero & Yan Carrière-Swallow
Emily Carter ’08
Gail & Edward Cashman
Marcela Castillo
Kathryn Bunger & Kevin Castro
Alexa & Alexis Catsambis
Maria Galarza & Diego Cerdeiro
Myra Riggs & Tom Ceusters
Patricia & Paul Chabrier
Olga Zhivov & Carl Chapman
Charities Aid Foundation of America
James Iker
& Kenneth Nuss
Patrick
Catherine & Tom Tinsley
Marta Alonso-Escartin ’98
Randy Althaus
Stephanie Bagliani
Vanda & Matthias Berninger
Christiane & Colin Buck
Lucy & Edgar Buckley
Charles Schwab
Erin James ’03
& Jasper Snoek ’00
Veronika & Sergio Sola
Rocio Martinez Arellano
& Jaime Solano
Consuelo Zuluaga
& Gabriel Somay
Sara Sonsalla
Jennifer Stoff Sood
& Sumit Sood
Andrew Sopher
Erin Rebhan & Leopoldo
Soto Arriagada
Bronislava Shmilovich
& Jaafar Soulimani
Renata Hesse
& Joshua Soven
Dikel & Aliou Sow
Emily & Ken Spain
Jean Lee
& Brett Spooner
Jessica & George Springsteen
Claire Alexander ’94
& Colin Stackhouse
Borbala HorvathStadler & Balazs Stadler
Djinn & Constantine Stavropoulos
Romain Stavropoulos ’14
Paraskevi Papageorgiou
& Asgeir Steindal
Andrea Harrison
& David Stenzel
Corinne Stephenson ’08
Elise Stephenson
Cathya Wing
Stephenson
Rebecca Kagan
& Philip Sternhell
Parker Ruhl
& Kosta Stojilkovic
Cristina Gomez
& Benjamin Stoll
Betsy Alley-Strocher
& Derek Strocher
Maria Genoni
& Gustavo Suarez
The Sullivan Family
Charitable Foundation
Erin Summers
Yasmin Almeida
& Jonathan Swanepoel
Cecily Swanson ’01
Tracey Fung
& Joseph Sweeney
Jennifer Li & Joseph Syverson
T. Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving
Laurelle Lo & David Talbot
Farida Assem
& Ashley Taylor
TD Bank
Gerad Teague
Zeynep & Emre Tekinalp
Jeffrey Telgarsky
Suchanan
Tambunlertchai
& Federico Temerlin
Soler
Blain Temesgen
Laura & Dale Temple
Senait Tessema
Maria Thakrar ’96 & Kavi Thakrar
Erica & Adam Thibault
Sarah & Alistair
Thomson
Alexandra White & Jacob Thoppil
Tina Thuermer
The Tides Foundation
The Kyle Todd Public Service Foundation
Pooi Cheng Ng & Seng Guan Toh
Amy Tong-Meisels
Lina Naga & Yasar
Torres-Yaghi ’01
Raquel Trabal & Elio Trabal
Elizabeth & Christopher Tucker
Julia Tulloh ’15
Ellen Tunstall
Melissa Thomas & Jens Turunen
Reem & Eric Tyson
UBS
UBS Business Solutions US LLC
Deborah Crane & Bertram Ulrich
University of Maryland
Michelle & Russell Upton
Brittany & Daniel Vajdich
Kelsey Kemper Valentine ’09
Kathy & Ron Valenzo
Anouk van Aanholt
Ursula Steenwijk & Mathijs van Gent
Vanguard
Vanguard Charitable
Sushmita & Andrew
Vargo
Lesley Albanese & Ian Vasquez
Megan Vaughan
Martine Wauters & Ivan Velev
Anka Dadarlat & Eugene Vereta
Carmen Burger & Jan-Paul Vestering
Matthew Vincenz ’94
Dolores Virasoro De Cima
Katharine & Adam Vodraska
Davida Connon & Jude Volek
Oksana Markarova & Danylo Volynets
Roderick von Lipsey
Maria Lucia Guerra
Bradford & Erik von Uexkuell
Christina Serafin & Sava Vrbaski
Marya Sonny & Anthony Wahl
Amy & Kip Wainscott
Maria Teresa Molina
Talavera & Mark Walker
Elizabeth PercesepeWallace & Peter Wallace
Patricia Griffin & Jason Walsh
Miranda Zhong & Wei Wang
Jayson Ward
Helena Sjostedt-Ware & Richard Ware
Susan Warford-Ailles ’82
Carola Mandelbaum & Dahn Warner
Nigel Warren ’00
Susan & Jolin Warren ’95
Margaret & Colin Warren
Kate & Tucker Warren
Darya Iventicheva & Shane Warren
Maya Grassi & Toby Watkins
Robin Weaver
Alissa & Baird Webel
Caroline Giffon Wee & Asbjorn Wee
Joann Martens-Weiner & Richard Weiner
Werther & Mills LLC
Ana Guglielmelli White & Steven White
Pinar Cebi Wilber & Steven Wilber
Kristi & Daniel Williams
Elizabeth Williams
Candace & Craig Williams
Rita Kyomukama & Timothy Williamson
Tricia & Marc Williamson
Jimise Winston WISPA
The Bruce & Susan Wohlfeld Family Foundation
Caroline Wood
Katherine & Jon Wood
The Worldwide Small Change Foundation
Alice Clapman & Robert Worth
Aldaine Wynter
Jia Liang & Liang Liang Xu
Racquel Yerbury
Laura & Kyle Yost
Phillip Young YourCause, LLC
Morvarid Yousefi ’98
Macu Yrureta
Allison & Santiago Zalazar
Iffath Sharif & Hassan Zaman
Rachel & Michael Zamsky
Alexandra Zavis ’88
Nan Geng & Zhen Zhang
Jinjin Li & Kunpeng Zhang
Luna Teng & David Zhuang
Miriam Zimmerman ’77
Thanks to the incredible generosity of our community, the 2024-25 Club WIS: Masquerade fundraiser raised more than $400,000 in support of financial aid.
This inspiring evening celebrated the spirit of access and inclusion that defines WIS, while directly expanding opportunities for students across our campuses. We are deeply grateful to all who contributed—whether by attending, sponsoring, bidding, or giving — to ensure that a WIS education remains within reach for a broad range of families.
Achilles Football Club
Georgina Ardalan & Alexander Ackemann
Funda Gizer Akgun & Kudret Akgun
Ouahiba Akkache
Farah Al Hinai
Catherine & Hamed Alaghebandian
Yuko Hashimoto & Bruno Aleonard
Randy Althaus
Winnette Ambrose
Anonymous (7)
Kássia Belo Da Silva
Antoine & Florent
Antoine
Catalina Tejada Grullon & Adolfo Argüello Vives
Saraya & Richard
Arnold
Robertina Mbedzi & Gbetoho Ayivodji
Michael Ba
Nana Banful
Anjali Dsouza & Mariano Banos
Alex Kaplan & Olivier Basdevant
Sarah Alkenbrack & Kevin Batteh
Sabine & Jan Bayer
Leanna & Jamie Beaber
Holly & James Beardow
Allana Bejarano & Noel Bejarano
Benevity Community Impact Fund
Newport Capital Group
Vanda & Matthias
Berninger
Natasha Bhalla ’91
Seher Binder-Cirak & Florian Binder
Brooke & Thomas Bollyky
Hilen Meirovich & Juan Bonilla
Serenella & Bassem
Boustany
Rebecca Ross-Bown & Chad Bown
Mara Mosconi
& Andrea Braccialarghe
Ignacio Bravo
Ann & Christopher Breaux
Katherine Myint-Hpu
& Peter Breuer
Nancy & David Brigstocke
Kali Bracey
& Eric Brown
Lillian & Henry Brownstein
Rosemary Jeronimides
& Christopher Bruneau
Buck’s Fishing & Camping
Melissa & Jason Burnett
Vincent Caccavale
Giuliana Cane
Carmen Marimon & Marc Caplan
Carletta Girma
Photography
Aimee & Michael
Carney
Karla Montero
& Yan Carrière-Swallow
Myra Riggs
& Tom Ceusters
Olga Zhivov
& Carl Chapman
Joan Churchill
Clare V Boutique
Laura Jaramillo
& Juan Climent
Doris Clingman
Jenna & Ryan Colley
Comet Ping Pong
Megan & Sean Connolly
Nicole Coviello
CulinArt Group
Samantha Siranli
& John Dabney
DAFgiving360
Kristy David
Olivia & John Davis
Akenia Davis-Newman
Elena Tosana
& Garry Dean
Cathy Delcoco
Cynthia DeSando
Tian Liang & Ding Ding
Maria Fernandez
& Robert Dunsky
Tim Dwyer ’89
Sarka Dybczakova
& Kamil Dybczak
Margaret Allen & Matthew Earley
Meghan Ebbitt
Jason Ell
Embassy of Austria
Embassy of Denmark
Embassy of Maldives
Embassy of Ukraine
Joana Pereira
& Patrick Eozenou
Nancy Kasparek & Riccardo Ercoli
Elinor Famutimi ’04
Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund
Rachel & Joseph Firschein
Anne & Robert Fleishman
Tony Fletcher
Folger Library Theater
Ivana Rossi & Cristian Francos
Audrey Pasipanodya & David Fuhr
Game Genius DC
Paige Gaines-Hoffman
& Simon Gawlik
Melanie York & Craig Germano
Tomoko Suzuki & Jose Gijon
Kristin & Christopher Gilliland
Anne & Ethan Glass
Goldman Sachs
Philanthropy Fund
Rachel Van Dongen & Juan Fernando Gómez
Fernanda Brollo & Juan Carlos Gozzi
Amy Easton & Keith Green
Gabriela & William Green
Angela Rodin & Alan Guerry
Yun Fu & Jiazhen Guo
Samantha & James Gushner
Rebecca & Stanislaw Haciski
Karen Vossler & Scot Hagerthey
Tanjala Haithcock
Emeline Bredy & Stephane Hallegatte
Sophie & Val Hawkins
Kenyatta & Patrice
Hazlewood
Bridget & Eoin Healy
Lisa Hayes & Tom Henneberg
Isis Rodriguez-Cortes & William Herter
Elena de la Rosa Blanco & James Hileman
Melissa Conradi Hill & Nicholas Hill ’91
Mariella Schattiger & Cory Hillier
Ruth Lyons & Luuk Hoefsloot
Cara Lewis & Francisco Hoyos
Katie & Jack Huffard
Lauren & Michael Huneke
Elif Cevik Ismen & Kerem Ismen
Leigh Ann Caldwell & Gregory Jaczko
Katherine Kinsella & Edgar James
Janet Morris & Andrea de Michelis
Suzanna & Björn Jemsby
JM Zell Partners, Ltd.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Erin & Scott Jones
Reginald Jones
JPMorgan Charitable Giving Fund
K AND ARTE
Heather & George Kaye
Jia Guo & Wei Ke
Lauren & Mark Keremedjiev
Carolyn Hill & Todd Kim
Petra & Raymond Kimsey
Lindsay Smithen & Jeremy Kirsch
Lynda Garcia & Joshua Klausner
Fanta Soukouna
& Alpha Konate
Mairzy & Alex Krulic
Kristen Kullberg
Hilary Chapman & Rohit Kumar
Pallavi & Nitin Kumar
Catherine McCarthy & Ashok Kumar
Isabel & John Kunsman
Carolyn Wu & Joshua Kurtzig
Med Lahlou
Jenna Lanier
Lanier Landscapes
Elizabeth Lacey & Greg LaVecchia
Anne & Clement Leflot
Letterjoy
Patricia Garffer & Piers Lewis
Chelsea Stieber
& Michael Lewis
Kaimeng Huang & Bo Li
Tania Mendez Tarazona & Todd Lippincott
Bethany & George Little
Melissa & Khalil
Maalouf
Marissa McCauley
Sapna Budev & Dominique McCoy
Dorothy & Daniel McCuaig
MCN Build
Angela & Israel Mendoza
Viktoria & David Metzner
Middle School Administration
James Miller
Mirihella Facilities Management
Sisira Mirihella
Anjum Rosha & Dermot Monaghan
Irina Paramonova & Jaime Montemayor
Muchas Gracias
Cindy & Charles Murphy III
Leah Chang & Ryan Naftulin
National Center for Plastic Surgery
Anna Gumen & Gaston Navarro
Kristin & Edgar Nehme
Dorina Bekoe
& Kwaku Nuamah
Urska Zrinski
& Brian Olden
Ramona Oliver
Scott Orloff Otgonsuren
Sabine Ronc-Oude
Hengel & Sander Oude Hengel
Lauren & Jonathan
Patrick
Luisa Caro & Juan Payeras
Marta Hidalgo ’87 & Martin Petri
The Phillips Collection
Livia & Paulo Piccolo
Leah & Mauricio Posadas
Tara Ferdows & Ali Pournader
Hainey Price-Staley
Primary School Administration
Primary School Spanish Department
Ossai Miazad & Ludovic Proutiere
Nadeem Quershi
Red Coats, Inc.
Jim Reese
Monika & John Relman
Emanuela Galasso & Luca Ricci
Jane Schmitz & Adam Richards
Nida Parks
& Robert Richardson
Cathy Richardson
Namandjé Bumpus & Conrad Risher
Flavia Rizzini de Andrade
Gretchen & Michael
Robbins
Joyce & Kenneth Robbins
Defne Gencer
Robertson & Courtney
Robertson
Karen Livingston & Gerardo Rosas
Hillary Rosse
Ayana Chatterjee & Kaustab Roy
Luciana & Juan Rubiolo
Ruta
Emine Hanedar & Tevfik Sahin
Priya Fielding-Singh & Anshuman Sahoo
Neda & Nader Salehi
Betsy & Joseph Samuel
Melissa & Alberto Sanabria
Federica Locati & Federico Sarzi Braga
Kerstin Canby & Norbert Schady
Christine Scharf
Monika BlaszkiewiczSchwartzman & Adam Schwartzman
Doerte Doemeland
& Carlo Sdralevich
Brent Lee & Jeffrey Seay
Neha & Robert Serrano
Caroline & Ian Shapira
Sònia Muñoz
& Daniel Shaul
Eleanor Shaw
Karima Benbih & Carlton Sheffield III
OneDigital
Karina Manasseh
& John Sikking
Samantha Siranli
Siranli Dental
Rocio Martinez Arellano & Jaime Solano
Souk by the Sweet Lobby
Renata Hesse & Joshua Soven
Jessica & George Springsteen
Djinn & Constantine Stavropoulos
Rebecca Kagan
& Philip Sternhell
Parker Ruhl
& Kosta Stojilkovic
Cristina Gomez & Benjamin Stoll
The Sullivan Family
Charitable Foundation
TD Bank
Gerad Teague
Zeynep & Emre Tekinalp
Maria Osman ’96 & Kavi Thakrar
Sarah & Alistair
Thomson
Alexandra White & Jacob Thoppil
Amy Tong-Meisels
Top Level Futbol
Raquel Trabal
& Elio Trabal
UBS Business Solutions US LLC
Upper School
Administration
Upper School Spanish Department
Michelle & Russell Upton
Brittany & Daniel Vajdich
Lesley Albanese & Ian Vasquez
Anka Dadarlat & Eugene Vereta
Davida Connon
& Jude Volek
Oksana Markarova & Danylo Volynets
Roderick von Lipsey
Sava Vrbaski
Amy & Kip Wainscott
Helena Sjostedt-Ware & Richard Ware
Carola Mandelbaum & Dahn Warner
Kate & Tucker Warren
Maya Grassi
& Toby Watkins
Alissa & Baird Webel
Werther & Mills LLC
Candace & Craig Williams
WIS Facilities
WISPA
Woolly Mammoth Theater
Alice Clapman & Robert Worth
Aldaine Wynter
Racquel Yerbury
Yoga Heights
Viviane Zaho
Allison & Santiago Zalazar
Rachel & Michael Zamsky
Luna Teng & David Zhuang
Jamie Zike
please reach out to advancement@wis.edu.
Endowment The WIS endowment is a vital long-term resource that helps ensure the School’s financial stability and ability to plan for the future. Like all strong independent schools, WIS relies on its endowment to provide steady, predictable support for priorities such as financial aid, faculty development, and program innovation. Because endowment gifts are invested and only a portion of the earnings are spent each year, they create a lasting impact — benefiting not only today’s students, but generations to come. Growing the endowment is essential to sustaining excellence at WIS and fulfilling our mission in perpetuity.
Program Funds Program funds support a diverse array of initiatives at WIS, including but not limited to: service and learning exchange opportunities, social justice and equity projects, professional development for teachers and staff, climate and environmental studies, and residency programs.
The Blutinger Family Fund for Climate Change and Environmental Studies is intended to strengthen the study of climate change at WIS through the related fields of biology, chemistry, and physics. It seeks to raise awareness for the need to protect the environment, and to educate WIS students on ways in which they can make a difference personally and professionally.
The Richard & Carol Hall Residency Fund honors previous head of School Dick Hall’s commitment to ensuring a stimulating learning environment at WIS. The fund underwrites an annual event, speaker, or performer to allow faculty, staff, students, and their parents from both campuses to join in exploring serious international themes and global issues.
The Mary McCarty Library Memorial Fund honors the memory of Mary McCarty, who came to WIS in 1976 as the School’s librarian and retired in 2002 as the Director of Finance and Facilities. The Fund also honors the memory of Barbara B. Taft, who, with her husband William H. Taft III, was involved in the early years of WIS and served on the Board of Advisors from 2001–2004.
The Community Equity and Justice Award (CEJA) was established by a Class of 2020 family to support social justice and equity initiatives at WIS. Each year, members of the Upper School community are invited to apply for the CEJA, which underwrites projects—particularly those which establish multi-year partnerships with local front-line groups—that raise awareness about persistent social inequities and injustices in the Washington, DC area.
The Mara Wilson Fund honors the memory of Mara Wilson, a WIS Middle School Art and Design Technology Teacher and artist whose work was defined by her love for her community and her vision for a more just and equitable Washington, DC. The fund is designed to support initiatives at the School that increase awareness about racial inequities; instill a culture that directly challenges and denounces racism; and cultivate a school environment where individuals of color feel safe and confident, and where all community members are equipped to recognize racial insensitivity and feel compelled to take action against it.
Financial Aid funds supplement WIS’s annual financial aid budget, allowing the School to provide larger awards to a greater number of deserving families. WIS’s financial aid budget for FY2024–25 was $4.8 million, which provided 148 students with an average grant of $34,739.”
Class of 2006 Scholarship Fund
The Class of 2006 Scholarship Fund was established by the parents of 2006 to honor their children through annual endowment distributions for one half-scholarship.
The DC Scholarship Fund
The DC Scholarship Fund supplements WIS’s general financial aid budget to provide financial aid to students from the District of Columbia who meet nationally established poverty criteria.
The Clarice R. and Howard J. Feldman Fund
The Clarice R. & Howard J. Feldman Fund provides scholarships for students who could otherwise not afford to attend WIS.
The Financial Aid Endowment Fund
The Financial Aid Endowment Fund supports tuitionindependent socioeconomic diversity at WIS, helping ensure that our global education is accessible to a broad range of students.
The Hill Memorial Fund
The Hill Memorial Fund honors the life and memory of Althea Hill, whose academic achievements would not have been possible without the generosity of others. The Fund, which was established by her son Nicholas Hill and his wife Melissa Conradi Hill, supports a determined Upper School student eligible for Financial Aid based on criteria determined by the School’s Financial Aid office.
K.G. Lim Memorial Fund
The K.G. Lim Memorial Fund sponsors an eligible Upper School student for one year at WIS. The Fund was established by an anonymous donor in honor of K.G. Lim’s longstanding desire to provide scholarships for students in need.
The Class of 2007 Gareth Vaughan Scholarship Fund was established by the parents and students of 2007 to honor Upper School Head Gareth Vaughan for his longstanding commitment to socioeconomic diversity at WIS and to equal educational opportunities for all children.
The WIS Memorial Fund honors the legacies of departed members of the WIS community and ensures their memories remain as indelible parts of the School. The Memorial Fund supports financial aid at WIS, and is aligned with our goal of promoting socioeconomic diversity by expanding opportunity to more families, regardless of their financial means. At present, the Fund memorializes the following late members of the WIS community:
Sam Smith, 1957–2006
William P.J. “Sam” Smith was a beloved math teacher and college counselor who came to WIS in 1986. In addition to teaching and advising hundreds of students over the course of his career, Sam was involved in many theatrical productions, extracurricular activities, and community service. Anyone who crossed Sam’s path knows what a truly good person he was, how he treated his students with the respect that allowed many to feel as if he were a friend and not just a teacher. Besides numerous mathematical memories are those of a teacher who worked so hard with students who needed extra help, who came in during his vacations to write that one last college recommendation, of the actor (Mr. Cellophane, in particular!), and, of course, the Converse high tops.
Jonas Weiss ’87, 1968–2003
Jonas Weiss was a warm, compassionate friend to all, a gentle spirit who is remembered by his personal qualities and goals of promoting diplomatic leadership and general social concern. After he matriculated from WIS, Jonas later graduated from American University before taking a diplomatic post with Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He served at embassies in Belgrade and Moscow, before transferring to Amman, Jordan in 2001. Jonas’s primary area of responsibility was Iraq, and over that summer, he quickly became a familiar face on the Amman diplomatic circuit, freely sharing his observations of life in Baghdad and other parts of the then conflict-affected country. It was his special sort of genuine kindness and concern for others that made Jonas such an esteemed figure among those who knew him.
Johnny Hersson-Ringskog ’98, 1979–2024
“As an American-Swede, Johnny grew up in Alexandria until 1988 when his family moved to Helsinki, Finland, where he spent five magical years before returning to Virginia. After initially attending the Charles E Smith Jewish Day School, he joined Washington International School in 10th grade and graduated in 1998. After graduating, Johnny studied at the University of Manchester in the UK where he met his wife, Rhoda. They married in 2008 and lived in London where they were blessed with two children, beautiful Ruthie and handsome Jacob, before moving to Stockholm to head up HSBC’s corporate lending in the Nordic countries. Even with his brief time at WIS he was loyal to his friends and was honored by his friends and classmates who dedicated a tree (near the WIS Mansion) to him in fall 2024, along with a plaque to always remember his dear soul.
Sean Hopkins ’82, 1963–1990
Sean Patrick Hopkins was a much-loved member of the WIS community and valedictorian of his class. He went on to study at Georgetown University. Following his death, his father Robert, a career CIA officer, became an advocate in the fight against AIDS. In 1996, Robert wrote a book entitled Sean’s Legacy: An AIDS Awakening. Sean is remembered by his classmates as a gentle leader who exhibited an effusive kindness and humanity, and as a person who had a beneficial effect on others, drawing them to him through his positive outlook on life and affecting them in turn.
The Larry Vincent Memorial Fund
The Larry Vincent Memorial Fund was established to honor Larry’s legacy as a WIS music teacher from 1973 until his retirement in 2009. While he was best known for his love of music and theater, Larry also saw WIS as a welcoming community, enriched by differences—a family that he loved. In alignment with his own philanthropy, the Larry Vincent Memorial Fund supports WIS’s financial aid budget to help ensure a WIS education is accessible to students from all backgrounds.
From parent and alumni celebrations to trustee and friends receptions to faculty and staff fun, it’s our enduring connections and commitment to our students and each other that matter most.
What a great time we had this Spring and Summer! We’re excited about all the joy and learning the new school year 2025–2026 brings.
We celebrated with our alums, parents, faculty, staff, trustees, and dear friends! And we continue our ongoing conversations and action to responsibly steward WIS — ensuring a remarkable and vibrant future for all of our students now and in the decades to come.
WISEL Summer Camps Are Full of Joy
WIS Extended Learning day camps in June and July are six weeks packed with language learning, creativity, and joy! Our summer camp students light up as they make new discoveries and build friendships each day.
WIS lovingly remembers Grade 11 student Jack Hair, who will always be a part of the spirit of this community.
GIVING
The Language of Generosity
Key Priorities:
Le Centre Brown
WIS Annual Fund
Brilliance Since ’66: WIS’s 60th Anniversary Gala for Financial Aid
In this diamond anniversary year, giving is simpler—and more powerful—than ever. Every gift to the 60th Anniversary Fund supports WIS’s most urgent priorities, empowering our school to meet today’s needs and shine even brighter in the years ahead. We hope you’ll join us in making a lasting impact during this milestone year.
In May, the WIS Board of Trustees adopted the new 2025 Strategic Plan for a 3-year period that began July 1, 2025. The Board encourages everyone to read the Plan, which prioritizes holistic well-being, evolves our educational approach, and enhances WIS’s future.
September 27
Our all-community celebration of Le Centre Brown!
January 15
Founders Day Observed With Festivities
April 11
Brilliance Since ’66: WIS’s 60th Anniversary Gala for Financial Aid
WIS welcomes applications from families seeking an internationally-minded education. Our students graduate with an IB or bilingual diploma and a high level of proficiency or fluency in their chosen language, as well as a strong, inquiry-based skill set in STEAM. We offer financial aid to qualified families.
Reach out to us to learn more!
Mary Hastings Moore, Director of Admissions & Financial Aid
WIS celebrated its LabelFrancÉducation certification at a festive ceremony in May, with the Consul General of France inWashington, D.C., and Education Attaché presenting the honor in person.
“In recognition of the outstanding work by the WIS team, the School has received the prestigious LabelFrancÉducation,” said Consul General Caroline Monvoisin. “This certification is awarded by the French Ministry for Europe and ForeignAffairs to schools around the world that promote the French language and culture, and it recognizes excellence in French education.”
Since its founding by a group of visionaries in 1966, Washington International School (WIS) has provided a multilingual international education to students in the greater Washington, D.C. region. WIS is a welcoming community with 900 students in Preschool through Grade 12. We offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP), the rigorous International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), the WIS Bilingual Diploma, and inquiry-based learning at every grade level. Ensuring proficiency in more than one language, including French, Spanish, and Mandarin, is foundational to a WIS education and to our mission to be an exemplary learning community — enriched by differences, informed through inquiry, and global in reach. WIS is located on two beautiful campuses in Washington, D.C.
