The Regional School Board of the Governor's School that oversees the administration comprises one school board member from each of the participating localities. At its 1991 founding, the Governor's School for Government and International Studies was given the Thomas Jefferson High School building to share by Richmond Public Schools. The city school stopped accepting freshmen in 1991, intending to turn the building fully over to GSGIS by 1995. However, parents, students, and alumni of TJHS, as well as city politicians, protested the closing of their school, RPS reversed its decision, and in 1992 TJ started accepting freshmen again and GSGIS started looking for a permanent home. After several years of false starts and administrative turnover, GSGIS finally obtained the Maggie Walker High School building, an abandoned former Richmond City school, as a permanent home. The original building, Maggie L. Walker High School, was first opened in the 1930s as a school for African-Americans. It was named for Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman and African-American to operate a bank in the United States and was once attended by American civil rights lawyer and politician Henry L. Marsh, African American tennis pro Arthur Ashe, as well as pro football Hall-of-Famer Willie Lanier, and NBA great Bob Dandridge. GSGIS took up occupancy in fall 2001 after several million dollars of renovations and adopted the name Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, or MLWGSGIS for short, though commonly shortened further to MLWGS. Today, MLWGSGIS is known for its academic record and high performance in scholastic competitions such as "We the People" and "Battle of the Brains." All academic classes are taught at an honors or higher level. A large percentage of Governor's School seniors are accepted into the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a number of other well-respected universities, including many in the Ivy League and Federal Service Academies. The class of 2013 received over $14 million in merit-based scholarships for 178 senior students. Students perform well above the national and state average on the SAT, with scores averaging 2146 for the Class of 2014. In keeping with the school's name, which indicates a focus on government and international interests, the school offers AP courses in American History, European History, American and Comparative Government, Micro and Macro Economics, Psychology, and Human Geography, and has received awards for high scores on the American History AP Test.