T. C. WILLIAMS HIGH SCHOOL

'T. C. Williams High School' is a public high school in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Named for a former superintendent of Alexandria City Public schools who served from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, it is located near the geographic center of the city, at 3330 King Street. It is referred to informally as '"T.C."' (rather than "Williams") by students, faculty and locals. T.C. currently enrolls about 2,000 students from grades 10-12. Ninth graders attend nearby Minnie Howard Ninth Grade Center and participate in T.C. Williams sports and extracurriculars. T.C. Williams is part of Alexandria City Public Schools.
The school provides numerous Advanced Placement courses for its students. Every year, dozens of graduates go on to elite colleges, and T.C. Williams has won numerous statewide academic and scientific competitions.
T.C. has a Junior ROTC program, and the T.C. Marching Band travels to competitions up and down the East Coast.

Contents

History

Demographics

Academics

Accreditation

Test scores

Laptop initiative

Athletics

Football and 'Remember The Titans'

Rowing

Notable alumni

External links

History

T.C. Williams opened in 1965 as Alexandria's third public high school, and became the city's only public senior high school in 1971, serving 11th and 12th graders, with the freshman and sophomores attending the two others, Hammond and George Washington. Currently, "T.C." serves 10th through 12th grades, with two middle schools, Francis C. Hammond Middle School, and George Washington Middle School, serving the city's 6th through 8th grade students, while 9th graders go to the Minnie Howard 9th Grade Center. Minnie Howard students still participate in many activities at T.C. Williams, including drama/theater, choir and sports.
Increasing enrollment has prompted plans for a new school. In January 2004, the Alexandria school board approved a plan to build an entirely new school building on the current location of T.C. Williams in order to provide more space. The new T. C. Williams High School is expected to open in 2007. The gym at T.C. Williams is named after Gerry Bertier, a member of the 1971 championship team for T.C. Williams who died in a car crash ten years later.

Demographics

T. C. Williams High School's student body is 24.3% White; 43.4% Black; 24.8% Hispanic; and 7.3% Asian. Like many public schools in the Washington D.C area, T.C. Williams has a large share of students from families with low socioeconomic status.
The school's diversity of nationality is exemplified by dozens of flags in the school lobby representing the nationality of each student at the school.

Academics

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

Accreditation

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

Test scores

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

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

Laptop initiative

T.C. offers laptops to all of its students. The laptop initiative, which began in the 2004-2005 school year, provides every student with their own personal computer as well as campus-wide wireless internet access. The program has been designed to allow all students to gain a basic knowledge of computers.
Students are able to do homework assignments in programs like Microsoft Word and submit it to their teacher electronically. Many teachers now have students create PowerPoint slideshows for things such as book reports.
Wireless access is only available at the school, during daytime hours and also in the evenings at the school's library. Students are also able to remotely connect to the school network through a dial-up connection for two hours each evening.
Internet access is restricted and blocks download sites, entertainment sites, and others that could distract students from their work during class. Access is allowed to websites provided by text books companies that offer additional activities or study guides.
Most teachers allow students to take notes on their laptops and applications are provided to help students in almost every course. English teachers use the laptops to give students extra learning strategies on authors or stories; History teachers use the laptops to show students Web sites with extra information; Government teachers use the laptops to allow students access to local government sites and information or participate in mock elections.

Athletics

T.C. teams play in the AAA Patriot District of the AAA Northern Region. The mascot is a Titan. The Titans are best known for their boys and girls basketball programs, as well their rowing team. T.C. has also won state championships in basketball, football, indoor and outdoor track. Along with numerous state and regional track titles, they were also nationally recognized in 1993 when they became the first ever U.S. high school 4x100 meter relay team to defeat the Jamaicans at Penn Relays. In more recent athletic achievement, the T.C. lacrosse team captured the district title in 2006, only five years after the team was created. In 2007 the Boys Tennis Team won the district title.
Because T.C. is the only public high school in Alexandria City, and the only non-Fairfax County high school in the Patriot District, the Titans do not have a sole rival school. The Titans have developed rivalries against Hayfield Secondary School in recent years due to the success of both schools' basketball teams, as well as West Potomac High School, which is also located rather close to Alexandria.

Football and 'Remember The Titans'

T.C. and its legendary former football coaches, Herman Boone & Bill Yoast, were featured in the 2000 motion picture ''Remember the Titans'', starring Denzel Washington and Will Patton. The movie depicted the consolidation (and indirectly, integration) of Alexandria's three public high schools into one in the fall of 1971. The city's public schools were desegregated in 1959, but the three high schools had become racially imbalanced during the 1960s. T.C. continued to be a state power throughout the 1970s and 1980's winning two more AAA football titles in 1984 and 1987.
T.C. Williams was referenced in the "My No Good Reason" episode of the television show "Scrubs." Three actors wearing T.C. Williams letter jackets appear towards the end of the episode. Donald Faison, who plays Dr. Turk on Scrubs, also starred in "Remember the Titans" as Petey Jones.

Rowing

T.C. is known for its nationally and internationally competitive rowing program, which has its own boathouse on the Alexandria bank of the Potomac River. T.C. Crew has claimed state, national, and international championships. Most recently, the Women's Varsity 8 won the CSSRA Championships in St. Catherine's Canada. The program has produced several Olympic athletes.

Notable alumni

Famous graduates of T.C. Williams include:

★ Diedrich Bader - actor, ''The Drew Carey Show'', ''Office Space''

★ David Bray - IT Chief for the Bioterrorism Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2000-2005

★ Keith Burns - former NFL linebacker, Denver Broncos, Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

★ Carl Carr - former NFL linebacker, Detroit Lions

★ Steven Ford - actor and son of U.S. President Gerald Ford

★ Tony Hunt - Philadelphia Eagles running back

★ Alexander Kerr - concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

★ Dermot Mulroney - actor, ''My Best Friend's Wedding'', ''Friends''

★ Kieran Mulroney - actor

★ Rick Nowlin - martial artist, actor

★ Madeleine Rowan - American poker player

★ Donnell Rawlings - comedian, ''Chappelle's Show'' castmember

★ Carl Stanton - celebrity chef

★ Ratcliff Thomas - former NFL linebacker, Indianapolis Colts

External links

★ Official website

★ 1971 Original Titans Virginia state champions in football

★ Virginia State SOL test results

★ TC Williams Commemorative Publications

★ Del Ray Sun Coverage of TC Sports