# The Westminster Schools

The Westminster Schools is a Kindergarten–12 private school in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, founded in 1951.

## History

Westminster originated in 1951 as a reorganization of Atlanta's North Avenue Presbyterian School (NAPS), a girls' school and an affiliate of the North Avenue Presbyterian Church. Dr. William L. Pressly of Chattanooga, Tennessee's McCallie School served as Westminster's first president. The school moved to its current campus in 1953 as the result of a land grant by trustee Fritz Orr.
Also in 1953, Washington Seminary, another private school for girls, founded by two of George Washington's great-nieces in 1878, merged with Westminster. The resulting school was coeducational until the sixth grade, with separate schools for boys and girls continuing through the twelfth grade, a practice that continued until 1986 and provided the basis of Westminster's plural name.
In the mid-1950s, Westminster became a test site for a new advanced studies program that would later become the College Board's Advanced Placement program. In 1962, the administration building, later named Pressly Hall, was constructed, bringing the number of permanent buildings on campus to four.
In the early 1960s, the school barred black students and only rarely allowed African-Americans on campus.
In 1965, the school's trustees voted to adopt a nondiscriminatory admissions policy.
Until 1978, the school also operated as a boarding school, using Tull Hall as a dormitory.
In 2006 the school ran a campaign attempting to raise $100 million to further increase its endowment size. The campaign was at the time the third-largest ever for an independent school in the United States.

## Campus

Westminster is on a wooded campus of 180 acres (0.73 km$^2$) in the Buckhead community of Atlanta. A new campus road, completed in June 2004, rerouted traffic away from central campus. In addition to Clarkson Hall, the Middle School building completed in August 2005, Westminster has six main high school academic buildings – Askew Hall (1953), Campbell Hall (1954), Pressly Hall (1962), Broyles Art Center (1988), Robinson Hall (1997), and Hawkins Hall (2020) Pressly Hall houses administrative offices, the Malone Dining Hall, and McCain Chapel. Originally built in 1970, Turner Gymnasium underwent major construction and expansion completed in 2001. Broyles Arts Center houses the orchestra, band, and art programs, Kellett Theatre, a 500 seat theatre where all of the plays and musicals are performed, as well as the Campus Bookstore, an area for students to purchase snacks and Westminster apparel. Love Hall (1997) serves as the elementary school. Tull Hall, which was once the dorm rooms for boarding students now serves as a preschool. Barge Commons (2021) serves as the “front door” of the campus, housing a chapel overlooking the high school buildings lining both sides, a computer lab, snack bar, and admissions office, as well as many places for students to relax and socialize.
The campus hosted the Atlanta Marathon from 1964 until 1980. During the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the Torch was run through campus. The floor used for the basketball games during the Olympics is now in the school's Lower School gymnasium.
Westminster is currently implementing an extensive campus renovation to enhance teacher-student connection. Campbell Hall received a complete renovation, a new 28,000-square-foot upper school academic building (Hawkins Hall) was built, and a new parking deck was completed. The main athletic stadium was rebuilt, along with a community plaza. On the site where Scott Hall formerly stood, The Blake Center, a 40,000-square-foot Upper School Building is under construction and is scheduled to be completed in January 2026. It will accommodate nine innovation labs and 4,030 square feet of visual arts classroom space. The building will also house over ten informal collaboration spaces accessible to all students. Among other extracurricular groups, the Blake Center will be the home of the new studio for the Emmy Award-winning WCAT broadcast team and the new robotics den for Westminster’s robotics team, the 2415 WiredCats.

## Athletics

Westminster fields athletic teams.
For the 2012–13 school year, Westminster was named the nation's best overall sports program for its eleven state championships and four second-place finishes. Nearly a decade later, for the 2021-22 school year, Westminster was again named the nation's best overall sports program with ten state championships, two second-place finishes, and a final four appearance from the boys' soccer team.
These teams have won 290 state championships since 1951, including seven in the 2016–17 school year. Westminster has received the Georgia Athletic Directors' Association Director's Cup in its respective classification in 17 of the 18 years it has been awarded, 2000–2008 and 2010–2017. The varsity boys' tennis team won the Georgia State High School AAA State Championship in ten seasons in a row, 1999–2009. The boys' team has yielded many Division 1 NCAA scholarship tennis players over the years, and it has won several regional tournaments as well. The men's and women's swimming & diving teams have won 34 state championships under former coach Pete Higgins, whose accolades through 51 years of coaching include membership in the Georgia Aquatics Hall of Fame, recognition of January 5, 1990 as Pete Higgins Day by the City of Atlanta, among others. Westminster fields the sole varsity squash team south of Woodberry Forest School in Virginia featuring full interscholastic competition; the team placed 16th in the 2004 U.S. National High School Team Championships, held at Yale University, and the Squash Cats also won the title in 2012, 2016, and 2018.
In 2014, Westminster moved up a class from AA to AAA. In 2015, Westminster's football team won the AAA state championship for the first time in 37 years against rival Blessed Trinity Catholic High School in overtime, with a final score of 38–31. In 2016, Westminster's baseball team won the AAA state championship for the first time in 41 years, also against Blessed Trinity Catholic High School, sweeping the championship series in a pair of one-run victories. Westminster's boys and girls soccer teams have won the most state championships in Georgia High School history. The 2019 boys team also finished the season ranked #1 in the nation by MaxPreps meanwhile the 2021 girls team finished as the unanimous #1 team in the nation and again by MaxPreps in 2022.

## Extracurricular activities
### WCAT

WCAT, the school's broadcast program, streams events and school activities online. In the 2016–17 school year, more than 45 students from all three divisions helped stream more than 220 events. Since its inception in 2010, the program has won 8 awards and 7 honorable mentions from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Southeast division. In 2017, WCAT won its first-ever National Student Production Award from NATAS for Best Sports – Live Event Broadcast.

### Policy debate

The Policy Debate team has won 16 state championships as well as many large national tournaments, including the national Tournament of Champions five times. The team also won the National Debate Coaches' Association Championships in 2007, 2014, and 2017.

### Robotics

The robotics team at Westminster began in 2008 and is identified as FRC Team 2415, the WiredCats. The team has qualified for the FRC international championships every year since their inception, more than any other team in the state. They placed 5th at the Houston International Championships in 2017 after winning their subdivision at the International Championships, being one of few teams in Georgia to have made it to the Einstein Field Bracket. The team won the Peachtree District Championship in 2018 and 2019. They have other accolades including ten regional/district event wins in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2023, the chairman's award in 2010, the engineering inspiration award in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2018, and the creativity award in 2024.

## Notable people
### Alumni

Notable alumni of Westminster include:
* Margaret Mitchell (Washington Seminary, 1918), author, Gone with the Wind
* Evelyn Greenblatt Howren (North Avenue Presbyterian School, 1934), pioneering woman aviator
* Dorothy Kirby (Washington Seminary, 1938), sportscaster and golf champion
* Lynne Rudder Baker (1962), philosopher, University of Massachusetts Amherst
* Jeff Galloway (1963), Olympic 10k runner 1972
* Taylor Branch (1964), historian and author
* James H. Shepherd, Jr. (1969), chairman of the board, Shepherd Center, the United States' largest catastrophic care hospital
* Daniel R. White (1971), author
* Bill Nuss (1972), producer and writer The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, Pacific Blue, Hawaii Five-O
* Clark Howard (1973), consumer advocate and nationally syndicated radio talk show host
* Helen Ballard (1973), founder and chief executive officer of Ballard Designs; independent director of Oxford Industries
* Michael McChesney (1974), founder and chairman, Security First Network Bank
* Lisa Borders (1975), president of WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association), Atlanta City Council; serves as trustee of school
* Jennifer Chandler (1977), Olympic gold in 3 meter springboard diving, 1976 Summer Olympics
* Hannah Storm (1979), co-host of The Early Show and anchor for ESPN's SportsCenter
* Stan Whitmire (1980), GMA Dove Award-winning pianist and recording artist
* Phillip Alvelda (1982), co-founder, chairman and CEO, MobiTV
* Shuler Hensley (1985), Broadway actor
* Laurie Dhue (1986), former anchor (2000–2008), Fox News Channel
* Lauren Myracle (1987), author
* Marc Lipsitch (1987), Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
* Rob Kutner (1990), writer, The Daily Show
* Brian Baumgartner (1991), actor, The Office
* Ed Helms (1992), actor, The Office, The Hangover, former correspondent for The Daily Show
* Brooke Baldwin (1997), news anchor, CNN
* Sedrick Hodge (1997), former NFL linebacker
* Jennifer Stumm (1997), concert violist
* Morgan Jahnig (1998), stand-up bassist, Old Crow Medicine Show
* Kaki King (1998), musician
* Will Welch (1999), editor-in-chief of GQ
* Ansley Cargill (2000), professional tennis player, WTA Tour
* Julian Dorio (2000), musician, The Whigs
* Sarah Hawkins Warren (2000), Judge, Supreme Court of Georgia
* Sada Jacobson (2000), 2008 Summer Olympics silver medalist and 2004 Summer Olympics bronze medalist, sabre
* Noah Britton (2001), of Asperger's Are Us
* Parker Gispert (2001), musician, The Whigs
* Charles Judson Wallace (2001), professional basketball player
* Hamilton Jordan, Jr. (2002), musician
* Carter Hawkins (2003), General Manager for the Chicago Cubs
* Emily Jacobson (2004), 2004 Olympic fencer
* Gordon Beckham (2005), professional baseball player, 2009 winner of The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award
* Thomas Fellows (author) (2008), author of Forget Self-Help: Re-Examining the Golden Rule
* Harrison Butker (2013), Three-time Super Bowl Champion kicker for Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League
* Tyler Mitchell (2013), photographer who was the first African-American to shoot the cover of Vogue
* Will Benson (2016), baseball player for Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball, selected 14th overall in 2016 MLB Draft
* Blake Gillikin (2016), punter for Pennsylvania State University and the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League

### Faculty

* Cynthia Potter, Olympic bronze in 3 meter springboard diving, 1976
* Mike Swider, head football coach at Wheaton College, 1995–2019; coach at Westminster 1978-1985 (including Class AAA State title in 1978 and state playoffs in three other seasons)

## In popular culture

The film, The Blind Side, was filmed on the school's campus in June 2009, with students, parents, teachers and coaches acting as extras.