Wednesday: Meridian Charter School Celebrates Makeover
Meridian Charter School will show off its renovations. (Luis Gomez Photos)
From Rachel Nania. Check out her blog, Sear, Simmer & Stir. Follow Nania on Twitter @rnania, email her at rachel[AT]borderstan.com.
On Wednesday, September 19, Meridian Public Charter School will open its brand new doors to the community during an open house celebration at the school’s new 13th and V Street NW location from 11 am to noon.
For about a year, Meridian has been renovating the 1890s-era Harrison school building in the heart of the U Street NW neighborhood. The $16 million project includes state-of-the-art instructional spaces, an enclosed playground and a 12,000 square-foot addition with a cafeteria, multipurpose room, and media room for the charter school’s 530 local students. Meridian’s former building was a 1930s Manhattan Laundry building on Florida Avenue NW.
“The old building served us well when we started out more than a decade ago, but now we need more space and specialized facilities to reach the next academic level,” said Chris Siddall, a strategy and operations consultant who serves on the Boards and building steering committees at Washington Latin and Meridian Public Charter School. “We could have found a good building for our students in another part of the city, but waited until the right one to come along so we could keep serving the community we grew up with.”
Meridian’s grand opening celebration will include a few speeches from school leaders, music and readings from the students and some words from some of DC’s leading political and education figures. Mayor Vincent Gray, Councilmember Jim Graham, School Board Member Patrick Mara and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton are expected to attend the opening event.
“With a lease of up to 50 years, Meridian will become a long term anchor for our thriving community,” said Siddall. “U Street has become an education hub with several related non-profits, community-based lenders focused on schools, after-school programs and traditional public and charter schools. I look forward to even closer collaboration with this community to meet the needs of the neighborhood, as well as the broader District.”
Meridian (2120 13th Street NW) is a co-educational elementary and middle school starting at early childhood and continuing through the eighth grade. For more information on the event, or to RSVP to the opening, contact Maggie Yue at [email protected].
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