Rooted in Purpose: The Story of GDS’s Forever Home

GDS started out as a small group of parents with the same need and desire to educate their children in a way that ran counter to the predominant culture. They had an idea and manifested that idea, creating a school. To do this, they found a location to make that happen. Then over time, with growth and change, several locations. But the school existed before any of these places. It has never been about brick and mortar. The spaces have been only a reflection of its needs, goals, and growth; a body to house the soul that is the true GDS. But that doesn’t mean they are without influence. As much as its founders, faculty, and heads of school, these locations have also helped shape the GDS we know today.

Our school’s various homes are woven into the fabric of its history in ways that stretch beyond location and time. They impacted and influenced the school’s curriculum, shaped its educational philosophy, and influenced the school’s direction of growth in many ways, some more obvious than others. Each new environment provided opportunities for teaching and learning, but some also forced teachers and staff to think creatively about how to teach with what they had or didn’t have.

From the time founder Aggie O’Neil, in partnership with seven families and a student body of twelve, first opened the doors of their little elementary school in a small townhouse on G Place, the location was considered a temporary one, with the hope of eventually relocating to Georgetown, where Aggie lived. The founders then began to build the brilliant faculty that is in large part the vital foundation of GDS. Here they discovered painter Dante Radice, who had his studio across the street. Dante had studied art and architecture at George Washington and Columbia Universities and the Art Student League in New York City. A well-established artist, Dante ran one of the first contemporary art galleries in Washington at the time he became their art teacher.

The following year, GDS moved to Grasslands, on Nebraska Avenue, the rambling old mansion considered in the imagination and memory of some to be its most idyllic locale. It has been described as a magical and happy place where students and teachers were able to push the envelope of learning, explore and creatively utilize the grounds around the house, and lay the foundation for several long-standing traditions. But this space was not without its problems. Maintenance on the building proved taxing, the furnace was old and a constant worry, and like G Place, they viewed it as only temporary, a rented space. Still, it holds a special place in the hearts and history of the GDS community and is fundamentally important. Here educators first began to view the entire city as the classroom, reaching out into Washington for opportunities for field study and truly utilizing its “resources and potentialities,” as they had stated as one of their objectives in their charter. At the same time, they were creating a protective bubble, a safe haven for students from various backgrounds, a place of nonjudgment and acceptance entirely different from what many had been accustomed to.

Then in 1956, GDS purchased its first building: 5005 MacArthur Boulevard. A location close to Battery Kemble Park and the Potomac helped them maintain that freedom for students and teachers to explore the outdoors, but now in a more modern, if small, building that would serve them for the better part of a decade. Here they had a separate location for the kindergarten, dubbed Schoolhouse Hill.

GDS grew in this space during a time of much civil unrest in our country, and our students, much like our activist founders, in turn became social activists themselves. During their time here, their famed trip to Farmville, Virginia took place, in which students and teachers traveled to the segregated South, where the public schools had been closed in refusal by officials to integrate following the Supreme Court ruling.

GDS grew and soon outgrew 5005 MacArthur Boulevard pretty much by the time they had moved in. In 1965, they found a bigger facility for more room to stretch and grow. 4530 MacArthur Boulevard is considered GDS’s first truly permanent home and was built under the careful consideration of the second Head of School, Edith Nash. Though the space was still too small, they made good use of the “Big Room,” a multipurpose space where they held plays, bazaars, lectures, and science fairs. In this space, they began with 16 classrooms for 275 students, and the building was designed to match the philosophy of bringing the student to knowledge, not vice versa. Edith described it as “a place to explore and use.” They expanded the building over the years to include more gathering spaces and state-of-the-art facilities as the curricular needs and student population grew.

And still, GDS continued to grow and expand. Through the 1960s, the school only ran through the 9th grade, but students and parents pressed to extend it. In 1969, they added a 10th grade, and by 1970, Gladys Stern, then a parent and school assistant who would later become the third Head of School, spoke with Edith about establishing a full GDS high school. They needed space, and what they found for it was an old hardware store on MacArthur Boulevard named Keegan's. It would be the first home of the GDS high school, but just for a year until they could find something bigger and better suited to their needs.

The next two years were spent in a space on the campus of Mt. Vernon College on Foxhall Road (today the George Washington University Mount Vernon campus). The first GDS high school graduation was celebrated here in 1971.

Expansion continued between 1973 and 1985, and as the high school program grew, it was moved to 4880 MacArthur Boulevard (which is now part of the River School). While there, GDS bought and developed the apartment building and space behind it to continue the expansion.

Then in 1986, Gladys Stern shepherded the move to a new building, 4200 Davenport Street, a more permanent high school campus.

Frankie Pelzman, a GDS Board Member from 1976 to 1982, poetically described Gladys’s work overseeing the GDS expansion into high school: “Nurturing a high school one year at a time, meeting at first in rented classrooms, creating a vital secondary school community in the unlikely spaces of a modest four story office building that was later increased by a remodeled apartment house next door, Gladys grew a high school. She encouraged staff, shaped budgets and curricula, and knew each student by name. Somehow with the magic all great educators have, Gladys wove a net of excellence.”

Both the Lower/Middle School and then the High School in 2005 were expanded by fourth Head of School Peter Branch. Peter made sure the new facilities matched their needs. He added features such as a full-sized gym, a black box theater, state-of-the-art labs, and ample offices and classrooms.

Marc Fisher, GDS parent and alumni parent, and at the time, GDS Board Member and Secretary, said of Peter’s oversight: “Those who worked most closely with Peter in designing the two building projects were struck by how often and how deeply he dove into the blueprints to better align the architect’s plans with his concept of how physical spaces best supported progressive education.”

And GDS continued to flourish and grow. In the fall of 2020, with the completion of a new Lower/Middle School next to the High School, a dream of a unified campus was finally realized.

Of 4200 Davenport Street, Greenbench Companies, the construction management company that oversaw the project, called it the most “...significant building project of GDS’s 70-year history. Situated in the historic Tenleytown neighborhood adjacent to its High School campus, the new Lower/Middle School offers 155,000 square feet of collaborative learning space for its Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Grades 1-8 students. The project, which seeks [and attained] LEED Gold certification, also offers state-of-the-art playgrounds, landscaping, a new turf multi-purpose field, and subterranean parking.”

Based in part from what had been learned in a long history of varied spaces, GDS staff and faculty would, and continue to, find ways to ingeniously utilize each and every inch of the new space. 

In 2025, we have only just begun to reap the benefits of a unified campus, from new bonds and collaborative projects formed between Lower, Middle, and High School faculty, to the sharing of community events, to the influence and mentorship of older to younger students through the Impact Lab’s Buddy Program, to name just a few. Our new forever home is a place where GDS will be able to continue to grow, and for our community to flourish for many years to come.

Much of GDS’s history is alive and still unfolding, held in the memories of both new and longstanding members of the GDS community and connected to these locales. The connections and details are more layered, nuanced, and meaningful than any linear timeline could show. Much in the way Apache place names are deeply connected to moral teachings and cultural narratives, the mere mention of a name such as “Grasslands” or “Keegan’s Hardware” can invoke for some strong emotions, memories, lessons learned, and treasured stories.

The locales remain but a facet. Head of School Russell Shaw put it best in a foreword to the Spring 2020–21 issue of Georgetown Days Magazine: “GDS has never been about its facilities. GDS is GDS because of the people—the relationships, the magic that manifests when individuals with different life stories are brought together to form community... We can take comfort in the knowledge that no matter GDS’s physical future, our mission will reside in brilliant teachers, joyful and curious students, passionate alumni, and a purpose that transcends buildings and generations.”