Sterling Community Center Annex - 2020 Update

Sterling Annex - 2020

[Update August 2023: This school has now been demolished. Check out Sterling Annex DEMO DAY 1]

In the year 2020, I stepped out into the pandemic wasteland to bring you photos of what the outside world looks like! The outside around the Sterling Annex building, that is. As expected, little things have changed, but nothing major. 

The grass has not been mown in a while. It is quite high.

Front door

The front door is boarded up differently again. One of the old plywood pieces lays on the ground in front of the door.

A back corner of Sterling Annex

The other back corner of Sterling Annex

Random trucks, wood, and metal is being stored behind the school. A couch has also been discarded here. 

Former playground location

When I went by the playground, I heard some rustling and briefly saw a fox running away. Sorry, fox!

My favorite door

Stagnant water is lower than I've seen it!

One of the plywood panels had been pulled off an auditorium window. I peeked in the opening to see what it looked like inside the building:

Sterling Annex Auditorium Stage

Back of Auditorium. See hole in floor between the doors.

It looks like the building continues to be broken into. It is becoming a canvas for graffiti artists. There is a hole in the floor of the auditorium, don't know if that was intentionally created or due to a leak from a hole in the roof.

Bye Bye, Sterling Annex! See you next year!

Read all Sterling Annex Posts:
Sterling Community Center Annex (2012)
News on the Sterling Annex Building (2013)
Sterling Community Center Annex - 2016 Update
Sterling Community Center Annex - 2017 Update
Sterling Community Center Annex - 2018 Update

Sterling Community Center Annex - 2019 Update

Sterling Community Center Annex - 2021 Update

Sterling Community Center Annex - 2022 Update

Sterling Community Center Annex - 2023 Update

Sterling Annex DEMO DAY 1

Sterling Annex DEMO DAY 2

Sterling Annex DEMO DAY 3

After Sterling Annex - 2024

Fun New Project

Happy Winter Break! Glad the Mayan Apocalypse didn't occur.

Anyway, over my winter break, I'm keeping busy. I got a cool new writing project I'm working on. It's something I should have done years ago. I'll keep you in the loop.

In other news, life is good, got good grades this semester. I have a history research project at school going on right now for my brotherhood (Alpha Psi Omega, the national theatre honors fraternity). I've visited the new Frederick Douglass ES, I might do a post on what I saw. Also bought Loudoun Valley's 50th anniversary publication, I do need to write about that. I haven't heard anything about the documentary. I'm sure when it's finally done, someone will tell me.

Well, that's all for now!

Update: Whoops!

Locked out!! (Emerick Elementary School)

   So I've been gone for a week! Lots of work happened last week (and jet lag), so I didn't have much time. Last week I was transcribing four of the interviews done so far. When I wasn't doing that, I was helping out filming at this year's new teacher orientation.

   Regarding transcribing, It's amazing, you know, all the ticks people have, you know. All the umms and unintentional word repeating, thinking of what to say next. I think that's really interesting. But if I could describe transcribing in one word, it would be 'Painful.' It's hard, and people can talk really fast. I go half speed and I still have trouble keeping up. And with talking, you don't have to follow perfect sentence structure, so you can never predict what people will say. I have full sympathy for transcribers for the TV. It's tedious and it feels like it never ends.

I will be back with new articles this week!

Personal Note: Timelines

   I've been fiddling around with a new timeline recently.

   One of the first things I did when I started working here was to make a timeline of when schools opened up.
 

Small sampling of the timeline (and current future school plans)

   It's a great visual aid, especially seeing the school system's growth. Beside it is a timeline chronicling the many renovations over the year. It works fine and dandy, but only for current schools that are still open. It can show if a school is currently a support facility (grey background) or not apart of the school system (no color background), but it doesn't show when a school closes. How do I catalog that?

   The next step was to make a stat chart for schools. I had tabs for when schools opened, closed, original square footage, important history moments, etc. Both the timeline and stat chart work well together, but I still wanted something visual to communicate what the stat chart stated. I needed one place, a "consolidation of schools" of sorts.

   So, you could call this new one Timeline 2.0. It's official name is "Fun Timeline," because I made it for fun, but I think it'll be helpful too.

A sampling of the left side of the chart

   In this one timeline, each school has its own small timeline where I can jot down notes on its history. The colored parts indicate when they were in operation as a school. When the color ends, the school has closed. Their timeline of events still continues on, unless they burned down (like that one school in blue that was only open two years) or were demolished.

   You can highlight a year and scroll across to see how many schools were open that year (right now, my graph is correct up to the 1961-1962 school year!). It would probably give you a headache if you scrolled across it too fast, but I digress.

   The old timeline is still helpful. It's quick to look up. It's also easier to print out (If I've learned one thing about working in an office, it's that Excel is a pain to print out)

   2.0 is still a work in progress. I only realized today I didn't have the old Waterford School on there. Many renovations and important points in time are still missing. It'll get up to par with the other lists soon.

Update: The Documentary

   I haven't really explained here what has been happening with the project itself. To give you quick rundown, what I'm helping to work on is a documentary on the history of Loudoun County Public Schools. It's not going to stretch all the way to 1870, when public school started in Loudoun County. Our timeline starts in 1911, when Middleburg School opened. Since Middleburg was turning 100 last year, we wanted to show how we've gotten from Middleburg and one room schoolhouses to today's two story, many-roomed school buildings. The project was supposed to finish up last year, but due to other projects that popped up, we were not able to finish it. That's why I'm back this summer.

   My main job with the documentary is researching the history. This week, we are going to start interviews. During that time, I will be behind the camera, acting as a know-it-all on dates and events for LCPS if the interviewee needs help remembering something or gets a fact wrong. From there, we will start to be able to edit together a rough cut of the story we are trying to tell.

   So that's what's been happening here lately! Even though the researching phase is pretty much over, posts will still come out. There's still plenty to write about. 

   Have a great day!