National Planning Award, 1993
Public Education
Kramer-Anacostia Planning Project

Since 1988, students at Kramer Junior High School in Washington, D.C.'s Anacostia neighborhood have been shaping the future of their community through the Kramer-Anacostia Planning Project. Students have prepared a local park, analyzed development schemes for the neighborhood's northern entry, worked on a facade improvement study, and inventoried the architecture in Old Anacostia. For its innovative efforts, KAPP was honored with APA's first public education award in 1993.

Zavolia Willis, the principal from 1987 to 1990, developed the idea and worked with the board of education, the Anacostia Coordinating Council, and George Washington University's Institute for Urban Development Research to help students study local planning issues. In the first semester, ninth graders study basic planning skills and in the second, they analyzed a specific planning project.

In 1993 APA's Planners Day in School program participated in the project and added to the young peoples' experience, the opportunity to work with practicing planners.