It's been an amazing year celebrating "40 Years of Being the Difference!" at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. As we near the end of our school year, we finish preparations for our upcoming move to our temporary new homes. That's right, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts will be relocating to the U Street area with a spilt campus-- with Academics at Meyer Elementary School at 2501 11th Street, NW and Arts at Garnet-Patterson Middle School at 2001 10th Street, NW-- as our current building undergoes a two-year renovation. We are very excited about this new chapter and look forward to returning to a state-of-the-art facility in 2016 that will be better equipped to support the education and artistic training of our future scholar-artists.

We celebrated our 40th anniversary throughout the year with a very busy schedule. Our students were pushed artistically and academically as our various events, exhibits & performances required intense preparation while maintaining academic achievement. With the guidance and dedication from our staff and faculty, we continue to have a graduation rate of 98% and college acceptance rate of 95%. We are so proud of all our student and faculty accomplishments and achievements with numerous awards, recognition and nearly $4 million in scholarships to some of the nation's best higher learning institutions.

This has also been a year of transition as our former Director of Artistic Affairs, Tia Powell Harris, accepted a position as Executive Director of Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn after 26 years at Ellington. We also announce the departure of our dynamic Head of School, Rory Pullens, who after nearly 9 years of service to Ellington will be relocating to his home state of California to be closer to family. His leadership at Ellington has elevated the school to even greater heights and he remains Duke Ellington's #1 fan! Fr. John Payne will assume the role of Head of School after serving Ellington for 19 years, currently as Director of Student Affairs. 

Thank you for your continued support of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. We are able to provide the best arts and academic education to our talented, passionate and inspiring young people because of you. Please continue to "Be the Difference" by making a gift today. You can make your gift online at www.ellingtonschool.org or send a check to The Ellington Fund, PO Box 73008, Washington, DC 20056-3008.  

Below is the year in review and we also invite you to visit www.bpsn.net/ellington/ to browse through other professional pictures  available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds going towards the school.