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Ellington developed from the collaborative efforts between Peggy Cooper Cafritz and the late Mike Malone, founders of Workshops for Careers in the Arts in 1968. Workshops grew to become the Duke Ellington School of the Arts at Western High School in 1974—an accredited four-year public high school program combining arts and academics.

At its inception, Ellington partnered with The Ellington Fund—a non-profit organization that has raised millions of dollars to supplement money allocated to Ellington by the District of Columbia Public School System. This partnership between the public school system and a private non-profit organization worked to ensure the highest level of academic and artistic training opportunities for Ellington students.

In September 2000, the Ellington partnership evolved into the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Project (DESAP) to include the District of Columbia Public Schools, The Ellington Fund, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and The George Washington University. The goal of DESAP continues Ellington’s tradition of providing high school students with an educational experience that includes college preparatory academics, pre-professional artistic training, and access to the cultural and intellectual resources of the District of Columbia.

DESAP operates the school under a contract with the District of Columbia Public Schools, which recognizes that the school’s dual arts/academics curriculum requires additional funding in addition to the school system’s basic funding. The contract anticipates supplemental funding by the school system and through outside fundraising.