Supporting Sisterhood: Excel Academy Poet-Athletes Are Building More Than a Team

At Excel Academy Public School for Girls, DC SCORES is more than an after-school program. It’s part of the school’s culture — and part of how students show up for each other every day.

Since launching in 2023, DC SCORES programming at Excel has become a space where girls build confidence, lead their teams, and support one another on and off the field. 

Excel, the District’s only all-girls public school, established DC SCORES programming in 2023 thanks to a partnership with the Washington Spirit and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. Together, the organizations helped bring soccer, poetry, and service learning to more students in Ward 8. 

“We Both Have a Shared Mission”

Excel Academy Principal Shaunte Daniel has led the school for five years. She first considered a DC SCORES program at Excel because of the alignment between the nonprofit’s work and that of her school.

“DC SCORES embodies one trait we have in common, which is to empower,” she says. “They create opportunities for students to meet peers from different parts of the city, and they empower them to be athletes, but they also empower them to be academically stimulated through poetry sessions.”

That shared mission brought the partnership to life. 

DC SCORES had long identified a need for its programming at Excel Academy. The school is in Ward 8, where access to out-of-school time opportunities remains a priority. For its part, the Washington Spirit and its corporate partner CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield wanted to expand their shared commitment to promoting health and wellbeing for young people, especially girls.   

In the spring of 2023, these forces aligned to bring DC SCORES programming to Excel, giving students access to soccer, poetry, and service-learning and the resources they needed to fully participate: soccer gear, writing equipment, transportation to away games, and coaching.

For Daniel, the partnership endures because the values do.

“Excel prides itself on empowering our young girls. The idea that we both have that in common is the reason why I will never forfeit the opportunity to work with DC SCORES,” she says.

What she loves most is what the DC SCORES model asks of girls: to work together, disagree respectfully, and push toward something bigger than themselves. 

“That takes courage, that takes discipline, and it takes sisterhood,” she says. “And those are the traits that we embody at Excel.”

Sisterhood on the Field and Poetry Stage 

At Excel Academy, sisterhood starts early and grows over time. 

As a K-8, all-girls school, students move through their entire school experience together, and DC SCORES is a part of that journey. This season, 27 elementary school students and more than 50 middle school students participated in DC SCORES. 

Sah’Mia, a seventh-grade poet-athlete, has been part of DC SCORES for four years.

“What I like most about being in an all-girls school is how we support each other,” she says. “Like if we’re in need of something, we will help each other out.”

That support shows up in the way teammates respond to each other, in practices and games. 

“If we mess up, we’ll say, ‘It’s okay, just try again,’” Sah’Mia says. “We help each other get better.” 

First-year head coach Michaela Bradley has seen the same thing from the sideline.

“I see conflict solutions coming in really, really effectively,” Coach Bradley says. “They have to be with each other, even outside of classes; they have to be on the same team. So they solve problems really quickly.”

At an all-girls school, she says, that dynamic looks a little different than it might elsewhere. “A lot of times, guys get to make the call. But here, our girls get to make the calls. They get to run the drills. They get to coach their own teammates.”

Bradley also sees leadership forming in real time.  “I get to see what kind of leaders they have the potential to be in the future,” she shares. “Our school has a lot of young ladies that are academically doing well and thriving, and those same young ladies, like Sah’Mia, are doing well on the field as well.”

“It’s a safe space. It’s a brave space.”

For Coach Bradley, the value of DC SCORES is about what the girls carry with them when the season ends.

“It’s a safe space. It’s a brave space,” she says. “They’re able to show their talent. They’re able to have people put a good amount of positive pressure on them — to say, yes, you are a scholar and you’re an athlete.”

And she’s thinking about the long game.

“I want whatever we’re teaching them now about discipline, integrity, and leadership — I want them to take that and say, ‘I did that in soccer. I showed leadership. I didn’t know a skill, but I learned it.’” She hopes they’ll be able to walk into a job interview one day and point back to this team as proof of who they are.

DC SCORES also asks poet-athletes to write and perform their own poetry each fall, something Coach Bradley says builds a different kind of courage. “As a kid, I was so shy. Theater really sets your nerves a little bit. Getting on that stage — those are skills too,” she shares.

For Sah’Mia, all of it — the field, the team, the stage — comes back to one thing. “It feels good,” she says, “because I know that people are here to support me.