Answers to questions we often hear about our school name
Q: Why was Lake Washington Girls Middle School chosen as a name?
A: The founding families wanted a school name that reflected their South Seattle community, so Lake Washington was chosen as the regional signifier. They thought it was important that “girls” was in the name as a descriptor and that “middle school”, rather than simply “school”, needed to be in the name to signify our commitment to these important years.
Q: Should there be an apostrophe in the school name?
A: We love this question for the grammar lesson we get to do in response! In our school name, “Girls” is an adjective that describes what kind of school LWGMS is. It does not indicate the plural possessive “Girls’”. Think of Teachers College at Columbia University. “Teachers” describes what kind of college it is, but the teachers don't own the college so there's no apostrophe necessary. For more about apostrophes, check out Grammar Girl.
Q: What is the sports team mascot name?
A: The sports teams are "Fuerza". Since it is the LWGMS mission to teach girls to be strong in mind, body, and voice, our teams are called the Fuerza, which is the Spanish word for strength. The team mascot name was chosen by the student body in 2004.
Q: What is "L-Dub" all about?
A: Lake Washington Girls Middle School is a long name. Even our acronym, LWGMS, is a lot of syllables to say. So, a few years ago some students started shortening LWGMS to L-Dub. Some credit the class of 2004 and some credit the class of 2005 for this ingenious abbreviation, which has been embraced by our whole community. Even our student magazine is called "Elle Dub" in honor of this nickname.