Congress chartered the school as the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind in 1857, funding tuition costs for students from D.C.

In the early years, the institution served students in elementary and secondary school, before beginning to offer college degrees in 1864.

[5] In 1901, a law was passed requiring that all deaf, school-age residents of the District of Columbia be educated at Kendall School.

That included support for parents of deaf infants and toddlers who were not yet of school age, as well as a cued speech inclusion program at the National Child Research Center, a mainstream preschool in northwest D.C., that was in operation from 1973 to 1982.

[4][14] In 1981, a review found that of the 13 children who spent at least two years in the NCRC-Kendall program, a majority were at or above grade level.

[26] The early intervention program includes classes for parents, a playgroup for caregivers with their deaf babies and toddlers, half- and full-day preschool, and pre-kindergarten.

[28] In 2018 and 2019, KDES was the top scoring team at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf's math competition for middle schoolers.

[30][31] In 1927, Kendall played in the first basketball tournament organized by what would become the Eastern Schools for the Deaf Athletic Association.

[32] Kendall was a founding member of the Mason-Dixon Schools for the Deaf Athletic Association, playing in the league's first basketball tournament in 1953.

[34] Today, the KDES Wildcats compete in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference against mainstream private schools.

The racial makeup of the K-8 student body during the 2015–16 school year was 45.5% African American, 23.4% Hispanic, 18.2% Caucasian, 7.8% Asian, and 5.2% multiracial.