| Oyster-Adams Bilingual School | |
|---|---|
 Adams Campus | |
| Location | |
 | |
2801 Calvert Street NW (Oyster Campus) 2020 19th Street NW (Adams Campus) | |
| Information | |
| Former names | James F. Oyster School John Quincy Adams School |
| Type | K-8 school |
| Established | September 20, 1926; 99 years ago (1926-09-20) |
| Status | Open |
| School board | District of Columbia State Board of Education |
| School district | District of Columbia Public Schools |
| NCES District ID | 1100030[1] |
| NCES School ID | 110003000160[2] |
| Principal | Carolina Brito |
| Grades | PK-8 |
| Enrollment | 781[3] |
| Language | Bilingual (English-Spanish) |
| Mascot | Tigres |
| Affiliation | International Spanish Academy (ISA) |
| Website | oysteradamsbilingual.org |
Oyster-Adams Bilingual School (Oyster-Adams orOA) is abilingual (English-Spanish)K-8 school[4] inWashington, D.C. The Oyster Campus inWoodley Park serves grades PK to 3 and the Adams Campus inAdams Morgan serves grades 4 to 8. It is part of theDistrict of Columbia Public Schools system.
The schools that formed Oyster-Adams date back to 1926. The current form of the school, Oyster-Adams Bilingual School, was created through the merger of the James F. Oyster School and the John Quincy Adams School in 2007.
TheJames F. Oyster School opened on September 20, 1926, at the intersection of 29th St NW and Calvert St NW in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The school was built over a period of ten months by contractor George E. Wyne at a cost of $250,000. The school was named after CaptainJames F. Oyster, a member of the D.C. Board of Education. The school opened with 208 students in grades Kindergarten through 5th grade.[5]
In the 1950s the school took part in an experimental language instruction program offering instruction in French, Spanish and German.[6]
The Oyster School's English-Spanish bilingual program started in 1971 and became a showplace of the bilingual movement, attracting visitors from around the world.[7] In February 1983, a seminar entitled "The History and Politics of the Oyster Bilingual School" was offered at theNational Association for Bilingual Education’s convention, followed by a tour of the school.[8]
First LadyRosalynn Carter persuaded national industry leaders to support the Oyster School.[9]
By 1993, the original building had become rundown at DCPS proposed closing the school. An Oyster parent founded the 21st Century School Fund[10] which enabled the replacement of Oyster with a new building, utilizing a novel public-private partnership. This approach involved a land exchange and a bond repaid by revenue from a new apartment complex, the Henry Adams House Apartments, with the project spearheaded by the 21st Century School Fund and developed by LCOR Inc.[11] LCOR and partner Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. will make $804,000 annual payments in lieu of property taxes to the city for 35 years. Those payments will cover the $11 million revenue bond used to plan, design, construct and furnish the new building.[12]
TheJohn Quincy Adams School opened in 1929 on 19th Street NW, between California Street NW and Vernon Street NW. The school was named afterPresident of the United StatesJohn Quincy Adams.
When it opened, it only served white students and the previous neighborhood school, the Thomas P. Morgan School, became a school for African American students.[13] After the passage ofBrown v. Board of Education in 1954, parents and teachers from the two segregated elementary schools came together in 1955 to implement desegregation.[14] They formed the Adams-Morgan Better Neighborhood Conference and theAdams Morgan name stuck, giving the neighborhood the name it still has today.[15] The Morgan School, located at the intersection of California Street NW and18th Street NW, was demolished in the 1970s[16] and replaced with the new Marie H. Reed Community Learning Center which was dedicated on May 7, 1978.[17]
The Adams School had a nuclear fallout shelter in its basement. In 2017 aWashington Post reporter and aSmithsonian curator discovered it had been untouched for 55 years and reported on what they found.[18]
In 2007, the James F. Oyster School and the John Quincy Adams School merged to become Oyster-Adams Bilingual School, a PK-8 bilingual school. Both buildings remain in use with the Oyster Campus serving grades PK-3 and the Adams Campus serving grades 4-8.[19]
In 2022 a $1.5 million project replaced two playgrounds and renovated the turf field at the Oyster Campus.Mayor of the District of ColumbiaMuriel Bowser joined students, school staff, and families to cut the ribbon for the new playground on October 31, 2022.[20]
In October 2022 the District of Columbia Department of General Services issued a Request for Proposals interested in serving as the design-builder for the modernization of Adams Education Campus of the Oyster-Adams Bilingual School. The budget for the project is $55m.[21]
Oyster-Adams is affiliated with the International Spanish Academy (ISA) Program, an educational outreach initiative of theMinistry of Education and Vocational Training ofSpain that provides support, consultancy and recognition from the Ministry.[32]
Oyster-Adams is supported by the Oyster School Community Council (OCC), a501(c)(3)parent-teacher organization made up of parents, teachers and administrators that raise supplemental funds for the school and host community-building programming.[33]
[...]Oyster-Adams Bilingual, a K-8 school[...]
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