Groups of GDS students leaving and returning to campus during lunch is a common sight. Since the end of last year, however, some students haven’t been walking to get lunch, but rather, they’ve been zipping around Tenleytown on Lime Scooters. The scooters are provided by the company Lime, formerly LimeBike, which started in 2017 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Since then, they have expanded all around the globe, with services in New York City, Los Angeles, and even Paris, France. According to Lime’s website, they were founded with the idea that “mobility can be smart, equitable and
In an environment so heavily influenced by technology today, how many spaces are designated to spending device-free time with the opportunity to receive advice from adults in the community? Administrator Bobby Asher took initiative in creating “the Den,” a space to interact with grade deans, study, and take a relaxing break from the hyper-technological environment in which we learn. “The more we can create spaces for adults and kids to be together in a less formal setting, the more likely we are to have a community where people know and trust each other,” Asher said. For a long time, the
During the 2017-2018 school year, many students and teachers advocated for a program in which students could have access to graphing calculators. Graphing calculators normally cost around $150 dollars, which is a lot of money to spend on a resource that almost every math class requires. Thus, over the summer, GDS developed a program in which every student will be granted a graphing calculator. Lee Goldman, a math teacher and one of the teachers behind the new program, explained how graphing calculators are a great teaching tool in the classroom. “They help kids see the math and are also used
As you enter school on your first day, you may wonder what changed on campus over the summer. You might observe that the school bought new furniture, like the couches they placed along the English hallway. Or, maybe you’ll realize the maintenance staff painted your favorite classroom, like the language room across from the debate office. Most likely, you’ll notice the extraneous noise and clouds of dust because, nearly five years after GDS announced it would unify their two campuses on Davenport Street, construction workers finally broke ground on the project. The process to begin construction was certainly a lengthy
The release of the 2018-2019 high school curriculum ushered in a host of new course offerings in fields ranging from history to the performing arts to innovation and technology. Perhaps the most striking change is the introduction of a new history class for sophomore students entitled African Studies Survey. The addition follows the establishment of a World History course in the 2016-2017 school year, which enacted the history department’s departure from an exclusively European History tenth grade curriculum. “The only European history in tenth grade was actually imposed on the department in 1997 by the then head of school,” said
Some people wonder how frisbees fly. Aden Stinebrickner-Kauffman is not one of these people. He could tell you about the disk’s aerodynamics. He could tell you about distorted air flow, the Bernoulli Principle, and the lift component of force vectors. He could also tell you about what it’s like to play on a professional frisbee team. Indeed, the renowned physics teacher was a professional athlete. Inspired by his sister’s success on Duke University’s frisbee team, he picked up the sport during his freshman year of college. Not too long after, the Australian (yes, he was born Down Under) started to
While many voters believe that election day takes place on the first Tuesday of November, Georgetown Day School (GDS) students know that election day for the Student Staff Council (SSC) president occurs on the first Monday of May. Beating junior Jeff Elias and sophomores Jonah Doctor-Loeb and Margaux Van-Allen, junior Shonali Palacios will succeed graduating senior Cecily Davis as the school’s student body president. Starting this year, with an amendment to the SSC Charter, SSC opened presidential elections to the public instead of holding private elections. This change established a more democratic process to get the entire school involved. Elias,
You walk into your first day of high school, everything is new: new teachers, new campus, new students. How will you get to know this school? What are its values? How will you explore and come to understand your identity and find your place in this new environment? Perhaps surprisingly, ninth grade English class can help you find answer to some of these questions. As the GDS course catalogue explains,“English 9 texts focus on journeys — both metaphorical and physical — in which the protagonists “adolesce” as they struggle toward the formation of tested and tempered identities.” One of the
In February, students gathered in the forum as high school principal Katie Gibson announced that new security measures were being debuted. The administration communicated by email to the wider community, and within several days, these new measures took effect. “The securing of the front doors, updating our camera systems, setting up infrastructure for what will become the lower-middle school, are the general ideas,” said junior Robin Forsyth, summarizing the new policy. In practice, the Davenport street doors have been locked aside from designated timeframes, and people who wish to enter the building via those doors have to press a
On April 11th, the carpeted hallways of Georgetown Day School (GDS) were unusually still for a Wednesday afternoon. Across town, nearly 500 GDS students and faculty crowded Section 110 at Nationals Park and witnessed the Washington Nationals lose their final game in a series against the Atlanta Braves. Earlier that morning, the hundreds of high schoolers had donned baseball caps and t-shirts sporting the Nationals logo and patiently waited to board busses to begin the nearly annual Hopper Holiday. This tradition surprises everyone, except the administration, becoming a source of excitement for some while an added stress for others. The
When Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential election in 2016, Sarah Sherman, Georgetown Day School (GDS) class of 1993, decided she had to do something. Sherman has been politically active since her days at GDS, but this time, she decided to take action by starting her very own super Political Action Committee (PAC) called “Vote Me Too.” The “#MeToo” hashtag trending in 2017 empowered women across the world to speak up about their experiences with sexual harassment and assault. Sherman decided to combine the momentum of the “Me Too” movement to challenge the gender power imbalance in the government by
As the end of the school year draws closer, so do the dreaded final exams. For many freshman students, these exams will be the first exam they have ever taken. This is a very stressful time for all students; many believe that those ten hours of testing can dictate their entire future. Additionally, the final exam is a significant portion of one’s final grade in a class and no one wants to attempt something so important for the first time without preparation. This winter, for the first time, Georgetown Day School (GDS) decided to have minimesters in the place of