 Representatives from The Johns-Hopkins Center and NIS board were able to use their honed Chinese Language abilities to at last obtain local accreditation from the local authorities in 1996 with the assistance of Jan Holoch, Heiko Lubben, Bernard and Daria Weber, Milo Manley, Alan Wachman, and Bill Rope.After three years in rented rooms at the Nanjing Foreign Language School, (NFLS) the enrollment at the Nanjing International School had expanded requiring more space than the two classrooms could offer at the NFLS.NIS board members approved the renovation of two buildings belonging to, and on the property of, the Dingshan Bingguan (now Shangri-La) hotel.