Our Home
In February 1995 Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center now CentroNía received sole ownership of its current home, gifted by the Bell Atlantic Telephone Company (now Verizon). This 73,927 square foot facility was renovated in its entirety by 1999 after the successful completion of a six million dollar capital campaign. 1420 Columbia Road, NW was originally part of the larger holdings of Columbia College, one of the District of Columbia's first higher learning institutions, and was purchased by C&P telephone, predecessor to Bell Atlantic, in the early 1900's. The initial structure was erected around 1917 in the brick federalist style; it is a 4-story building that served as both an office building and operations center. In a return to its earlier history, the property was reinstated as a learning institution when it was donated in 1995.

The building's structure is exceedingly sound as it was designed to accommodate heavy dead loads for telecom switching gear and survivability of the networks operating within. Its 12-15 feet ceilings and large floor plates give way to wide open areas and the possibilities for manipulating the space are diverse. The building has sufficiently accommodated our growth over the past six years, CentroNia's multiple programs including the DC Bilingual Public Charter School occupy approximately 50,000 square feet which include:

• Six infant/toddler classrooms 
• Six pre kinder and kindergarten classrooms  
• Four multipurpose community rooms
• Two Resource rooms
• Six studios
• Dance studio
• Art studio
• Photography lab
• Computer lab

The remaining space is leased to community organizations, business enterprises, and commercial interests.  The tenants reflect an important mix, a blend that provides the community with services that complement CentroNia's mission and whose leases generate resources that assure the viability of the facility.

CentroNía's Future
Our strategic plan, also looks ahead and provides a guide for our continued growth and ability to respond to the growing community demands and needs for our services.  We are committed to continue to strengthen our model and over the next five years achieve the following goals: 

• To provide educational and wrap around services to 1476 more children through our
  infant/toddler, school age , and youth development programs.
• To successfully educate 544 children at the DC Bilingual Public Charter School.
• To support 810 more parents and families to continue their own paths of learning and to become powerful advocates for their children's education.
• To train and certify 750 outstanding bilingual early childhood educators from within CentroNía's diverse community.
• To create a new generation of educational centers throughout the Washington, DC Metropolitan area to extend our services to communities that can benefit from them the most. 

Board and Staff