About Our Students

> Achievement

100% of our seniors in all three graduating classes have been accepted to college. This year, our seniors were accepted to a wide range of schools including Cornell University, American University, Carnegie Mellon University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Rochester. Four members of the Class of 2007 will attend college on full-tuition scholarships.
Through our partnership with the College Success Foundation, 29 juniors were awarded an Achievers Scholarship, which will provide $9,700 per year towards college expenses and college counseling support.
Our environmental justice club, Plant-It Earth, has been recognized by the Earth Day Network for creating a positive change in our community. Plant-It Earth's activities include reducing waste at our school and conducting water quality tests on the Anacostia River. Read more about their accomplishments here.
In March, 2007, the Youth and Government Club participated in a city-wide Legislative Weekend in which schools from DC (public, private, and charter) convene at American University to propose and debate student-developed legislation. Congratulations to Thurgood Marshall Academy's delegation for the following achievements.

Bills written by Hakeem Ayodeji, Sylvester Garris, and Melissa Price were passed into “law.”
Vernon Odemns was chosen (for the second year in a row) as a DC representative to the National Conference.
Markeytta Harrison and Christian Yanez both served as City Council Members and were chosen as alternates for the National Conference.
The Thurgood Marshall Academy delegation received the highest group award as “Superior Delegation.”

Our sophomores participated in our annual Job Shadow Day, which is designed to introduce them to a wide range of potential career options. Students spoke with Mayor Adrian Fenty and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, watched Senator John Kerry during a floor vote, and screened potential movies for the National Geographic Society.
The AP US History class visited the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Students participated in a discussion of foreign affairs and toured the Capitol with two committee staff members.
Three students—Stephanie Douglass, Christian Yanez, and James Watkins—were chosen to join the Anti-Defamation League's National Youth Leadership Mission. After attending a conference, these students were inspired to invite a Holocaust survivor to share her story and discuss ways to combat prejudice and hate.
Our students and their mentors worked on four distinct community service projects on National and Global Youth Service Day. Each project focused on a different community issue such as recycling and homelessness.
Bruce Johnson won 3rd place in the African American History Month Essay/Oratorical Contest sponsored by the Government Accountability Office.
Two students were featured in WMATA's "Respect: Give it. Get it." campaign, an outreach effort to improve student safety in the Metro system.
Our dance team won a platinum award, the top honor, at the recent On Stage America Talent Competition.
Our co-ed flag football team won the 2006 charter league championship.
Thurgood Marshall Academy students stood out during the YMCA's weekend-long Youth & Government moot City Council legislative session held at American University in March, 2006. Vernon Odems was one of four students in the mayor's cabinet—one of the highest posts of the weekend. Derrell Lipscomb won passage for his bill to raise the tax on cigarettes. The Washington Post used his bill as its lead example when covering the event. Our students won top honors during the moot legislative session. Odems was one of ten students among the more than one hundred participants chosen by the YMCA to attend a conference on national affairs, and Lipscomb was selected as an alternate.
In spring 2006, Thurgood Marshall Academy students won all their cases in the DC Street Law Clinic's Moot Court competition held at the DC Superior Court.
During the 2006 Job Shadow Day in February, Thurgood Marshall Academy students observed a number of exciting and diverse professional settings, including The Washington Hospital Center, where a student observed a heart transplant in the operating room; US Senator Mark Pryor's office, where a student received a tour of the Capitol and was permitted to sit in on a committee session; and The Four Seasons Hotel in Tyson's Corner, where two students spent the day learning from the hotel's head chef. The Acacia Group also hosted a special Job Shadow Day in October.
Thurgood Marshall Academy developed a rich partnership with Court TV, which has resulted in the creation of a $20,000 scholarship for a Thurgood Marshall Academy student, and which brought Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to the school to engage in a dialogue with students as part of the national launch of Court TV's Careers in Justice Initiative.
Thurgood Marshall Academy students excelled in competitive summer programs including Phillips Academy Andover's competitive (MS)² minority math and science program; the Washington University Summer Program; The National Bar Association's Crump Law Camp; Upward Bound; and a number of other rigorous summer programs.
Two groups of Thurgood Marshall Academy students were awarded top honors at the Arena Stage's Between the Lines competition, a research-based event in which students develop a comprehensive visual exhibit relating to the theme of a popular stage production.
Thurgood Marshall Academy students demonstrated the effectiveness of the school's legal emphasis in the spring of 2004 when they won the District-level competition of We the People—a Department of Education-funded program that challenges student knowledge of the US government, the Constitution, and the American legal system—and represented Washington, DC, at the national competition.