As of September 30, 2023, members of the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) have been working under an expired contract, which enables DCPS to subject them to unreasonable working conditions. Though this...
Jackson-Reed prides itself on its diversity, and its required courses should reflect that. All students must fulfill physical education, music, and art requirements, but there is one type of elective missing:...
Whether it be just a five-minute drive or an hour-long ride on the Metro, every student at Jackson-Reed makes their journey to school each morning. DCPS has done an effective job at providing low-cost...
1. A raise
2. A Guapos giftcard
3. Your late work
4. A Stanley
5. A personal printer
6. A parking spot
7. Uggs
8. A permanent classroom
9. A crew bumper sticker
10. An apple
For the 2023-2024 school year, DCPS has introduced a new policy requiring teachers to have two “revision days” each term set aside for correcting and making up work. According to DCPS, each revision...
Students at Jackson-Reed are no strangers to term deadlines and the preceding weeks of stress and work. Each term, there is usually a school-wide deadline where all work is due and teachers have the following...
If there’s one thing Jackson-Reed staff, students, and administrators can all agree on, it is our frustration with the return of PARCC testing.
These standardized exams, described by the official...
Jackson-Reed’s recent network change from the previous system, iBoss and Gaggle, to Lightspeed Systems frightens us.
Like Gaggle, Lightspeed filters the content that devices on the network can search...
On Wednesday, February 1 (notably the first day of Black History Month), a revised version of the AP African American Studies (APAAS) curriculum was released by the College Board. These changes made modern...
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The Beacon has published the second edition of the 2022-2023 school year! Click the link below to read more about the Federation of Student Athletes, DCSAA championships, and overcrowding.
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Jackson-Reed strives for inclusivity. In order to support and validate our student body, we need to be thoughtful about which organizations we allow to be affiliated with our school.
The Fellowship...
This is the first paper of the new school year! Click and open the newspaper to read about overcrowding as a growing problem at Jackson-Reed, to analyze sexual education at our school, and to check out...
Jackson-Reed is falling apart. Teachers are burned out and students aren’t learning, leaving many feeling as though showing up to school just isn’t worth it. Even though we are quickly approaching...
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Hi readers! This is the May/June 2022 issue of the Beacon! Click to be introduced to Jackson-Reed's new principal, learn about the recent in-class issue relating...
For both students and teachers, the last few years have been marred by abrupt changes to our educational experience facilitated by DCPS, which have continued to impede the creation of a cohesive and reliable...
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The Beacon has just published its April/May edition, and the last edition for the current senior staff! Read this edition to learn about portable classrooms for next year, a new AP course,...
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The Beacon has just published its February/March edition! Read this edition to learn about name change, growing enrollment, lifted mask mandate, and more!
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The Beacon has just published its January edition! Read this edition to learn about vaccination updates, staff shortages, opinions on the 4x4 schedule, DCSAA All-State athletes, and...
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The Beacon has just published its November/December edition! Read this edition to learn about hate symbols and vandalism in the bathrooms, the name change, the boy’s basketball team,...
Teacher burnout affects everyone in the building. Through no fault of their own, teachers are often unable to dedicate the complete focus needed to educate Wilson’s students. Lesson plans and time for...
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The Beacon has just published its October edition! Read this months edition to learn about name change updates, the minorities in AP program, Wilson's new librarian, a spread about academic...
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The Beacon has published its first edition of the year! Read our September edition to learn about Wilson's COVID-19 safety protocols, homecoming, the theater department, Wilson fashion...
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The Beacon has published its last PDF of the year! This PDF has articles on COVID-19 restrictions for next year, responses to the name change, senior reflections, and a spread about love...
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The Beacon has published its sixth PDF of the year! This PDF has articles on the name change developments, end of the year festivities, and a spread about BIPOC-owned restaurants in DC!...
Wilson is almost certainly going to have a 4x4 schedule next year. The Beacon Staff strongly encourages DCPS to rethink their decision in order to improve both the quality of education and the mental health...
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The Beacon has just published its first PDF of the spring! There are articles about next school year, sports updates, and vaccinations. Check it out!
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The Beacon has published its first PDF of 2021! We have articles about Wilson's new hybrid plan, returning to school, mental health in the pandemic, and an update on the name change....
Walk up four flights of stairs at 8:40 in the morning just because
Search for ancient discarded Beacons
Drink some of that delicious skin-clearing trash can water in the atrium
Get in some...
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The Beacon has created another digital issue to report on the latest news in our school community! This issue has lots of information on the upcoming name change, the continuation of...
Removing Woodrow Wilson from our school’s namesake is an undeniably urgent matter. But the significance of this coming change goes beyond our disavowal of the former president —our next title will...
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The Beacon has created a digital issue for our first paper of the year. Topics include the upcoming name change, distance learning, sports commitments, and opinions about the recent presidential...
Wilson’s reopening is a complicated and multifaceted issue. Although virtual learning is difficult for many families, returning to school is simply unsafe. DC has been doing a decent job controlling...
The Beacon put together a digital May/June issue. This paper includes updates about school closures, stories about the Black Lives Matter protests in DC, accounts of student activism, and senior ads to...
The Beacon put together a PDF edition about Wilson and the coronavirus. We have stories about the switch to distance learning, how spring sports seasons have been affected, and the importance of social...
The past few weeks, we’ve been bombarded with information and subsequent panic regarding the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus. Countless social media posts, memes, and news stories have contributed to...
When the story broke that celebrities were bribing their kids’ way into elite universities, it seemed like many in our parents’ generation were shocked. We weren’t. As high-school students in 2019,...
Wilson students are all too familiar with the consequences of understaffing and resource shortages. Teachers are so overwhelmed with their class sizes that oftentimes months go by before they return assignments...
Over MLK day weekend, a video circulated on social media of an altercation between a group of boys from a Catholic school in Kentucky and a Native American elder on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The...
Wilson is 37 percent white. The Beacon staff is 76 percent white.
The Beacon’s biggest shortcoming is our lack of racial diversity. This isn’t news to anyone. We talk about this every...
When we sit down to brainstorm ideas for our monthly staff editorial, we usually end up with a whiteboard full of complaints. This month, we had another lengthy list, and the negativity of our usual staff...
Looking back on everything that has transpired since we began this school year, it seems that 2017-18 must have broken some kind of record for the amount of tumult and chaos it brought.
In December,...
A sea of Wilson students sit knee to knee on a dusty linoleum floor, clinging to the fear and hope that they all share. Reflecting in silence, they remember those who died in Parkland, whom they didn’t...
For high school students around the country, receiving a college acceptance letter is a life changing moment. These letters bring with them feelings of jubilation and excitement about what lies ahead....
DCPS decisions should be made with consideration for what is best for the students, and should not be knee-jerk reactions to public relations crises. Following the scandal at Ballou High School, DCPS called...
In honor of The Beacon's favorite holiday, we put together some high-quality Halloween-themed content, links to which you can find here.
Reviews of some lesser-known types of candy!
An investigative...
Colin Kaepernick has been sitting for the national anthem since August 14, 2016. By all indications, he will continue to do so as long as he feels that Black people are second class citizens...
Whenever Raven Baxter of Disney Channel’s “That’s So Raven” had one of her psychic visions, it was always without context, and came with little information regarding how or when that glimpse of...
The upcoming presidential election will determine our country’s chief decision-maker for the next four years. Nearly all of Wilson’s senior class and some of the juniors will have a say in who the...
DCPS announced its new policy for calculating final grades in the Aspen grading system this month. According to this policy, teachers can assign students grades from A to F, which are recalculated into...
On Tuesday, December 1, a gun was found in the possession of a Wilson student. In the emotional wake of such an incident, it’s easy to forget about all of the things that were handled well. The student...
The inner workings of our school system take place behind closed doors. The Beacon needs to contact DCPS officials constantly to collect essential facts, to ensure we have correct information, and to include...
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