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!

The History of Loudoun's Auditoriums

[Hey there. I accidentally deleted this blog post. Luckily, everything was salvageable. This was originally posted August 2, 2012. Enjoy! - A.J. ]

Loudoun County High School's Auditorium

   The Auditorium. Our meeting place. The place where a school’s community comes together. A feature we find essential in our schools today, yet it was not always like that.

   From 1925-1928, a new school opened every year (Leesburg, Lincoln, Lovettsville, and Aldie). These were the new generation of high school buildings. These schools came with an entirely new feature, the Multi-Purpose Room! These rooms could be used for various ways: a place for assembly, an indoor gymnasium, an auditorium with a stage, and later as a cafeteria (many schools let their students to go home for lunch in earlier times, especially before the Free Lunch Act)

Lincoln's Auditorium in the center of the school

   At this time, the school system must have realized the other high schools (or schools in general) were now considered sub-par compared to the shiny new schools. So from 1928 to 1931, Waterford, Round Hill, Purcellville, Middleburg, Lucketts, Hillsboro (and maybe Ashburn) Schools received a theatrical addition. 1929 had the most renovations finish up in one year (three), a record which wouldn’t be beaten until 1974.

Middleburg Elementary School Auditorium

   Why these schools? The pattern I picked up on is that all the listed schools were high schools currently or previously. My theory is the choice was probably attendance-based. These were also the biggest schools in the county. You don’t see an auditorium on a one-room schoolhouse.

   If you have been counting, 10, maybe 11 schools received an Auditorium (Ashburn HS burned down in 1944, so I’m not sure about whether it received an Auditorium). Last week I said there had been 12 high schools in the early 20th century. The remaining school from the high school list is the Unison-Bloomfield School. Unison-Bloomfield, interestingly enough, never got an Auditorium. In 1933, just after the Auditorium additions, the school closed. Maybe due to a lack of attendance at the school (the towns of Unison and Bloomfield are quite small) and foresight into the school’s looming closure kept the school system from adding such a large investment onto this school.

Unison-Bloomfield School, picture provided by a LCPS CIP

   In 1939, Arcola Elementary School (I) opened – without an auditorium. For whatever reason, the school system did not include one with the school. From Douglass High School (1941) onwards, every new school built came with an auditorium. (Around 1956-1957, Arcola ES (I) received an auditorium addition)

   The next milestone would be when the multi-purpose room separated its entities. Loudoun County High School was the first school to have separate rooms for the cafeteria, gym, and auditorium. Originally, all three were kept close together and centrally located in the school (Due to numerous renovations, this is no longer the case). All high schools built afterwards (and middle schools) have continued to keep them separate rooms. Their position in the schools varies, sometimes across the hall from each other, sometimes across the building.

Tuscarora High School Auditorium

   Elementary Schools have gone a different way. It wouldn’t be until the 70’s when elementary schools separated spaces. Now, schools come with a cafeteria and a gym, with the gym also being able to be an auditorium. Some older schools (such as Catoctin and Sully) have added gyms, with their old multi-purpose spaces becoming Cafetoriums.

   And that is how the Auditorium came to be! I am finally back to work on Monday (Dealing with a changing-four-time-zones headache—wish me luck!)


--Curtain--

Obama to visit LCHS!!!

(Read my recap post of this event here.)

President Obama will be hosting a rally this Thursday (August 2^nd) at Loudoun County High School!

No matter your political party, this is a very historic moment and an honor for Loudoun County Public Schools (and LCHS) to have a president visit one of its campuses. I have never heard of a president coming to a Loudoun County school, but my gut says not to assume this is the first time.

Over the years, a few presidents have lived in Loudoun County. James Monroe owned a manor house at Oak Hill (It’s now a private residence), and John F. Kennedy owned a house in Middleburg, so it is entirely possible a president might have visited in the past.

The event is free, but you need a ticket to get in. Click here or here for more information.

I am so mad I am on vacation this week.

UPDATE: The Leesburg Today has posted a story on the history of Presidents visiting Leesburg.

Gertrude Alexander

   Some would consider Loudoun County Public Schools to be a very progressive school system. While other organizations have only recently put females and minorities in seats of power, LCPS had a black and female superintendent in the late 30's.

   In 1939, Gertrude Alexander was put to the post as Superintendent in LCPS. But how is this possible right in the middle of both segregation and Superintendent Oscar Emerick's term (1917-1957)? Simple. She was superintendent of the African American side of the school system.

   According to this Balch Friends article, she was the person who recommended that all the smaller groups calling for a new black school join together under the County Wide League. Under the League, blacks finally got a non-firetrap high school building, Douglass High School (1941).

   She also invited Charles Houston to Loudoun to speak to the African American community for the first time. (I will properly cite this when I get back from vacation. Apologies). Houston, a famous lawyer, was also very instrumental in pushing for Douglass High School.

   Not much is known about Gertrude. No one at Balch Library can even find a picture of her. I don't know when her term ended or how did her superintendent position relate to Emerick's. This has just been an interesting nugget for you to chew on.

13 High Schools

   Did you know we're about to tie our all-time record for most high schools?

   At one time in the early 20th century, Loudoun County had 13 high schools. In no particular order, they were Waterford, Round Hill, Purcellville, Middleburg, Lucketts, Hillsboro, Unison-Bloomfield, Lincoln, Lovettsville, Leesburg, Loudoun Training School (for blacks), Ashburn, and Aldie.

   Back in that day, a high school was not as easily defined. Some schools only had one year of high school curriculum! Some schools weren't fully accredited by the state. And some were only a high school for a couple of years before being demoted to the elementary level (Purcellville was only open one year as a high school)

This fall, we will reach 13 high schools again. This time, they will all be 4-year state accredited high schools.
The schools are: Loudoun County, Loudoun Valley, Broad Run, Park View, Potomac Falls, Stone Bridge, Heritage, Dominion, Freedom, Briar Woods, Tuscarora, Woodgrove, and now John Champe.

According to the current Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), we will finally defeat our record in 2015, when HS-6 and HS-8 open their doors.

(We have never gotten rid of a middle school, so every time we open a new middle school, we beat our previous record)

(We have yet to beat our elementary school record. It's hard to compete when over 100 one room schoolhouses were built)

Sources:
"High Schools Once Flourished Across Area" by Eugene Scheel
LCPS CIP

(I'm still on vacation. I'm in Alaska, and my connection isn't that good. Hope you're having a great summer!)

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.