School Without Walls at Francis-Stevens

In January 2013, DCPS announced that the Francis-Stevens Education Campus would merger with the prestigious School Without Walls to form a lower PS-8 school called SWWFS. SWWHS will continue to be an application school that with selective entry requirements. SWWFS will have the same in-boundary and out-of-boundary lottery student body as other DC public schools. Francis Junior High School and Stev

ens Elementary School themselves are both historic schools in the District of Columbia. The two schools successfully consolidated during the 2008-2009 school year to become Francis-Stevens Education Campus and serve students from Preschool through 8th grade. In January 2013, it was announced that the school would merge with DC's selective School Without Walls High School. Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School was located at 1050 21st St NW, in the West End community of the District. The Stevens building was built in 1868 as one of the first publicly funded schools for black children, and before its closing in June 2008, it was the city's oldest school in continuous operation. The school was named for Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868), a Pennsylvania congressman who was an important abolitionist who served as a U.S. representative from Pennsylvania. He was first elected in 1848 and was a constant opponent of extending slavery or appeasing the South. Stevens worked his entire life to reduce the distinctions between the rich and the poor, as well as between blacks and whites. Congressman Stevens was a champion of "free schools" for all. In his final declaration for equality between blacks and whites, Stevens arranged to be buried in a remote cemetery where both whites and blacks were buried. Francis Junior High School was named for Dr. John R. Francis (1856-1913). He graduated from the University of Michigan, worked as a professor in the Medical School of Howard University, and was on the faculty at Freedman's Hospital. Dr. Francis established the first private hospital in the District. He also served as a member of the Board of Education for the DC Public School System. Dr. Francis was well known in the community for providing free and reduced-rate medical services for the poor and needy. The Francis building in which FSEC current resides was built in 1927 as a junior high school, serving poor black students whose families lived in the swampy area of the District known as Foggy Bottom, as well as black students from Georgetown. Except for the addition of a gymnasium, Francis today is the same as it was in 1927.