A MESSAGE FROM OUR CHANCELLORMarch 12, 2015Dear DC Public Schools Community:We are excited to share our budget and plan for the upcoming school year with you and are grateful to everyone who took the time to provide suggestions and feedback. Many ideas, including expanded elective offerings in every high school and our 500 for 500 literacy mentorship program, came (Click to read more)
1979 - Present
Appreciative and indebted to so many
The May 22, 2006 dedication of the new campus for Bell Multicultural High School and Lincoln Multicultural Middle School represented the culmination of a 27 year effort by hundreds of citizens, non-profit groups and businesses that have given their time over the years to be part of the MCIP experience.
Created in 1979 by Maria Tukeva, Bell's current principal, the Multicultural Career Internship Program (MCIP) began as an alternative school for students who were just learning English, low income students and others with special needs. MCIP's first home was a room located in the Marie Reed Community Learning Center.
From this very small beginning MCIP would grow to become one of the most vibrant community/school partnerships in the nation; a partnership that has raised $30 million to date to build the new CHEC campus and to support a wide variety of programs from teen pregnancy prevention to citizenship assistance.
Searching for a home
In 1982 MCIP was a school in search of a home. From an initial 40 students, MCIP had grown to be a school with 150 students crowding into two corridors in the former Lincoln Junior High School. Four years later, MCIP's 250 students would relocate to the third and fourth floors of the Bell Career Center. In 1989, MCIP merged with the Bell Career Center to become Bell Multicultural High School. The school received its accreditation by the Mid-Atlantic States Accreditation Committee in 1990.
MCIP had a home but not much of a home. The building lacked a cafeteria, auditorium and gymnasium. Bell's stability was also short lived. In 1994 facing declining enrollment across the city and budgetary shortfalls, the School Board and the Superintendent recommended reducing the number of schools by thirty. Bell was one of the schools recommended to be closed.
Although the school did not fit the standard profile of low enrollment, unsafe facilities, or poor academic achievement, the lack of basic facilities was cited as the reason for closure. Students, staff and community members banded together to prevent the closing of the school with peaceful marches, protest rallies and lobbying. This campaign was successful in keeping the school open, but not in obtaining the much needed physical improvements.
In 1996, MCIP board completed a feasibility study that included architectural plans and a market study for the potential expansion of the Bell High School/MCIP center on land just adjacent to the school that had remained under developed for 16 years. A year later, in 1997, students and community members would once again take to the streets to protest the condition of their school after it was forced to close for three weeks because of a leaking roof.
A new vision for education in Columbia Heights
In March 1999, at a meeting hosted by Federal City Council, the new vision of a Columbia Heights Educational Campus (CHEC) that included the Bell Multicultural High and Lincoln Multicultural Middle Schools was presented to 40 district leaders. Attendees included the newly elected Mayor Anthony Williams, DCPS Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, and City Council members Linda Cropp and Jim Graham, to name a few.
In early 2000, departing Superintendent Arlene Ackerman provided a pivotal boost to CHEC by allotting $2 million toward the pre-development planning of CHEC. Shortly after, the Bell/Lincoln school community began to actively participate in DCPS' Master Facilities planning process.
In March 2001 Lois and Dick England launched the public/private fundraising campaign for CHEC by issuing a $1 million challenge grant that required the MCIP Board to raise $3 million. In time, other distinguished D.C. residents and foundations including Calvin Cafritz of the Gwendolyn and Morris Cafritz Foundation and Anne Loeb Bronfman would step forward with their own generous $1 million donations. Over the next five years, hundreds of other individuals and organizations would lend their support to MCIP's $10 million dollar capital campaign. Not to be outdone, DC Public Schools committed $63 million to make CHEC a reality. Today, you see the results of this effort, a sparkling new campus that is at the very center of the economic and social revival of Columbia Heights.
More than just bricks and mortar
Over the years, MCIP has grown and transformed itself into one of the most vibrant and successful community/ school partnerships in the nation. There are countless people to thanks from Dick England to our current board president Carol Stoel. But ultimately, MCIP's success is rooted in the vision first put forward by Marie Tukeva in 1979 that America's new immigrants have a right to a quality education and that their very diversity is one of this nation's great untapped strengths. This vision has sustained MCIP and encouraged many citizens to donate their time to MCIP.
Our work is not finished. In the years ahead, MCIP will continue to need your help to improve literacy, to provide family support services and to increase our technology capacity. We are eager to get many more of our students on the path to college through our newly established Early College Program and to provide our students with the scholarship help that they always need. The new CHEC campus is the culmination of our first 27 years of service to the community. MCIP looks forward to your support in the years ahead as we seek to make this new and wonderful campus a beacon of educational excellence for the District of Columbia and the citizens of Columbia Heights.