News

Construction Begins on new KIPP DC Campus

Formerly a District of Columbia Public School, the Ruth K. Webb School was decommissioned in 2008, stripped by vandals of all valuable materials over the intervening years, and then partially destroyed by fire in 2012. Studio Twenty Seven Architecture is collaborating with the nationwide charter school non-profit KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) to reconstruct and augment the damaged building. The new facility will serve 1100 students from pre-K through 8th grades by 2014. Studio Twenty Seven’s new design reuses the existing building wherever possible and maintains a campus-around-a-courtyard format, while adding key features to provide amenities to the surrounding neighborhood.

At the intersection of the Trinidad and Ivy City neighborhoods, the area surrounding the Webb campus has one of Washington’s lowest rates of high school graduation, and highest rates of crime. The new campus will be KIPP DC’s fourth successful charter school targeting underserved areas of the District. Studio Twenty Seven has helped develop each of the KIPP schools in the District, creating a distinct identity that integrates the pedagogic principles of the KIPP organization.

KIPP DC is a network of high-performing, public, college-preparatory charter schools in Washington, D.C., which serves the city’s under-resourced communities. KIPP DC aims to transform their students and the communities in which they live by raising educational standards and providing college preparatory education. KIPP DC currently runs three of the highest performing charter schools in the District of Columbia. 100% of their students have brought their reading levels to their respective grade levels or above. 95% of the students who start at KIPP DC stay at KIPP DC. It is anticipated that 85% of their students will be first generation college graduates.

Read more about the new Webb campus at http://www.kippdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Webb-Release.pdf