Reno School

Reno School
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites
Reno School in 2016
Location	4820 Howard Street, NW, Washington, D.C.
Coordinates	38°57′9″N 77°4′38″W / 38.95250°N 77.07722°W / 38.95250; -77.07722
Built	1903
Architect	Snowden Ashford
MPS	Public School Buildings of Washington, DC MPS [1]
NRHP reference No.	10000242
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	September 7, 2010[2]
Designated DCIHS	November 19, 2009

The Reno School is a historic school building located at 4820 Howard Street NW, completed in 1903 to serve the needs of the Reno community in Washington, D.C. Like all public schools in the District at the time, it was segregated and served African American students in the area west of Rock Creek Park and north of Georgetown.^[3] The school was closed in 1950 after the Reno community was evicted to create Fort Reno Park and the adjacent Alice Deal Middle School.

Subsequently, the D.C. government converted the structure into a Civil Defense office and constructed antenna towers on its grounds. The building later was converted back into a school serving special education students, later called the Rose School after Rose Weintraub Alpher.^[4] After sitting abandoned for several decades, preservation groups succeeded in granting the structure historic designation in 2009 ahead of a planned renovation. In 2015, the historic building was restored and incorporated into a wing of the Deal School.

While the National Register of Historic Places listing refers to it as the Jesse Reno School contemporary accounts do not reference Civil War General Jesse L. Reno and no formal documentation has been found for this name. Newspapers instead refer to it as the "Reno School" or "Fort Reno School." The neighborhood was named after the fort, which was named after the general.^[3]