George Washington High School

George Washington High School is a public high school in Richmond District, San Francisco, California. In 2011, Washington High was ranked by Newsweek's Jay Mathews Challenge Index as the 497th best high school in the United States. History George Washington High School opened on August 4, 1936 to serve as a secondary school for the people of San Francisco’s Richmond District. The school was built on a budget of $8,000,000, on a site overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. The stadium, auditorium, and gymnasium were added in 1940. The school was formally dedicated on Armistice Day 1940. The lobby is decorated with murals by Victor Arnautoff titled Life of Washington that were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration in 1936 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal projects for public buildings. A student of Diego Rivera, Arnautoff made the murals in the "buon fresco" style, depicting scenes from the life of George Washington. Intended to teach students about the realities of history, the murals include representations of Black slaves and white indentured servants on Washington's estate. Another mural criticizes the notion of Manifest Destiny and has been criticized for its allegorical depiction of a prostrate Native American. In June 2019, the school board voted to remove the murals.