EMPOWERING YOUNG MEN
OF PURPOSE
Our Mission
The mission of the Washington Jesuit Academy is to provide a high quality and comprehensive education to boys from low-income communities, offering them a safe, rigorous academic setting and advancing their spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical growth.
Our Vision
Since 2002, the guiding vision of the Washington Jesuit Academy has been to create an education model that addresses the cycle of poverty that plagues our students’ communities and replaces it with a cycle of hope, determination, and success. In order to challenge the city’s widening achievement gap and bleak graduation statistics for underserved males, WJA incorporates the Magis (“the more”) and asks the important question:
What more can we do for our students, our families, and our community to change the face of urban education?
We instill in our students the confidence to find “the more” in themselves, giving them the necessary tools of moral character and compassion. Through the principles of a WJA education, students become open to growth, academically focused, spiritual, loving, and committed to justice. We believe that every student will learn to lead a purpose-driven life as a member of their community, becoming a reflective, action-oriented citizen whose focus will be on improving the lives of those most in need.
Our Ignatian Identity
The Washington Jesuit Academy is “a Catholic school formed under the auspices of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and operated according to Jesuit educational principles.” It is committed to living up to the ideals espoused by St. Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus. As a Jesuit institution, Ignatian Spirituality is the fabric woven through all programs. Cura personalis speaks to the care of the whole person: mind, body, and spirit.
While WJA is a Catholic school, it encourages inclusivity of all religions and appreciates the fact that most of its students are not Catholic. It seeks to nurture students to grow in their respective beliefs and recognize that spirituality is an integral part of human growth and development. With loving guidance and through a spiritual lens, with respectful openness to all traditions, backgrounds, and faiths, WJA encourages each student to discern his own pathway of faith that unfolds more deeply each year.
By the time he graduates from the eighth grade, a student at the Washington Jesuit Academy will be Spiritual, Open to Growth, Loving, Academically Focused, and Committed to Justice.
As he learns and grows during each year of his education at the Academy, his understanding and active engagement in each quality will grow, as well. As he leaves WJA, the graduate moves forward with the knowledge that each dimension of his life can continue to grow, especially if he is open to it.
This culture and view of education yields a relational and unique school. WJA’s model includes a rigorous academic year, challenging curriculum, an array of extra-curricular activities, cutting edge technology, an integrated arts program, athletics, a comprehensive summer program, an Office of Student and Alumni Success, and much more.
Students at the Washington Jesuit Academy are constantly encouraged to develop strong personal values and convictions. St. Ignatius believed that students should be intellectual, compassionate, conscientious, disciplined, spiritual and responsible. This is the foundation of what we strive to lead our young men to become — “Men for Others.”
Non-Discrimination Policy: The Washington Jesuit Academy admits students of any race, color, and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
