Our History

Beatriz “BB” Otero opened the Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center (later rebranded as CentroNía) in the basement of a church in Columbia Heights, DC, to provide affordable childcare for 15 children. The center quickly became a greener pasture for immigrant families and families from the district’s historic Black community, providing resources and support to ease immigrants’ transitions and offer opportunities to all families.

Programs expanded to include before and after-school services, as well as educational programming for adults, to address growing community needs.

Thanks to a generous donation by Verizon, Inc. (then Bell Atlantic Telephone Company), Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center moved into its primary campus at 1420 Columbia Road, NW. Enrollment grew to 100 preschoolers, youth, and parents

CentroNía’s CDA program was designed through consultation with child development centers to collaboratively identify major challenges that educators face, such as understanding content related to brain development, atypical child development, and language acquisition; connecting child development theory to best educational practices, particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse families; and much more. To respond to these challenges, CentroNía structured the program into 7 modules and enhanced it with extra coursework for a total of 130 instructional hours.

Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center launched its Early Childhood Education Program for infants and toddlers aged 0-3.

Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center launched the DC Bilingual Public Charter School.

Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center rebrands as CentroNía. Our name comes from a combination of Spanish, Swahili, and Esperanto. “Centro” means “center” in Spanish, and “Nía” means “our” in Esperanto and “purpose” in Swahili.

As families are increasingly pushed out of the District due to the rising costs of living, we opened a new center in Takoma Park, Maryland, to serve the growing immigrant community in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County.

Our Food & Wellness Program begins by preparing nutritious meals on-site, designed to support the optimal learning and development of young children.

We launched our Early Head Start program in Montgomery County, Maryland.

First Lady Michelle Obama launched her Let’s Move! childcare campaign at CentroNía’s Columbia Rd. center, recognizing our Food & Wellness program as a national wellness leader for early learners and their families.

We opened a new early childhood center on Upshur Street, serving infants and toddlers, housing our D.C. Early Head Start program.

DC Bilingual Public Charter School becomes an independent entity.

In partnership with DC Public Schools, we opened a center at Cardozo Education Campus to provide education and support services to teenage parents enrolled at the high school.

NíaCentral, a subsidiary of CentroNía, was established to provide catering services to early childhood education centers and schools throughout D.C.

Our Child Development Associate (CDA) training program is one of only seven nationwide to receive the Council for Professional Recognition’s CDA Gold Standard Training Certification.

We published the Theatrical Journey Playbook: Introducing Science to Early Learners through Guided Pretend Play.

Montgomery County approves a joint proposal from CentroNía and the Gudelsky Family Foundation for the redevelopment of the historic Silver Spring library on Colesville Road as the Martha Gudelsky Child Development Center.

Our Columbia Road and Upshur Street centers are awarded high-quality designations under Capital Quality, D.C.’s newly unveiled Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS).

CentroNía’s Amharic initiative was conceived due to a rising number of prospective or current educators whose educational backgrounds testified to their potential, but whose language proficiency precluded them from benefiting fully from CentroNía’s intentional and comprehensive CDA training. The program then decided to pilot the nation’s first cohort in Amharic.

In 2021, in collaboration with the Council of Recognition, CentroNía produced an official Amharic-language credentialing exam.

In response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, we dramatically ramped up community relief and temporarily adjusted our service delivery model to include distance learning and full-day extended care services for students enrolled at DC public schools.

We partner with DC Public Schools (DCPS) to provide services for primarily high-risk infants and toddlers at the new Stevens Early Learning Center.

Vice President Kamala Harris visits CentroNía’s Columbia Rd. center to unveil several exciting elements of the American Rescue Plan that will support children and families as the nation works toward recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the first half of the year, we opened the doors at Bunker Hill Elementary for infants and toddlers!