Looking to the Future With Room to Grow

By Michael Alison Chandler (Contact)

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Every morning this week, trucks full of desks, chairs and cabinets have pulled up outside Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn. By opening day, the furniture will adorn the nearly 50 classrooms and 12 science labs in Loudoun County's newest and largest middle school.

Principal Rodney S. Moore, who has been working out of a cubicle at the school administration building in Ashburn, has spent the past year searching for teachers and even picking out lockers and sparkling tiles. As September approaches, he longs for the sound of school bells and cafeteria chatter.

Photo: Dayna Smith

Eddie Guartado of McClary Tile finishes up some tile work in a hallway at Stone Hill Middle School, which is scheduled to open Sept. 4.

"I can't wait until the kids roll in," Moore said.

School planners expect about 550 students to trickle through the doors of Stone Hill, in the heart of Loudoun Valley Estates, when school starts Sept. 4. That's less than half of the 1,350 students that the classrooms can accommodate.

But planners predict that enrollment will grow as the surrounding fields -- now covered with Queen Anne's lace -- fill with the new houses that have been approved.

In anticipation of the growth, Rosa Lee Carter Elementary School also is opening this year in Ashburn on a road that has yet to be opened to the public, and a high school is scheduled to open nearby in 2010. Planned for 1,800 students, it will be the largest high school in the county.

Stone Hill illustrates a shift in Loudoun, the Washington region's fastest-growing county, toward the construction of larger schools instead of smaller neighborhood schools. Over the past decade, countywide enrollment has jumped 132 percent to about 50,500 students.

As the school system struggles to keep pace, school officials say it makes better financial sense to build larger schools. Continuing to build smaller schools, officials say, would require more schools, more land and more money.

But officials say that despite the bigger buildings, they try to cultivate the feel of a smaller school by keeping class sizes small and setting a goal of ensuring that every student gets to know at least two adults in the school well. Research shows that smaller schools, in which students can work more closely with teachers and administrators, have higher graduation rates and a more engaged student body.

"We like the community schools that we have, but they are vestiges of a bygone era, before we had explosive growth," said schools spokesman Wayde B. Byard. "We have adjusted our philosophy so that we can handle more students and make it feel like a small school."

A few years ago, the School Board decided that high schools should be built for 1,800 students rather than for 1,600, middle schools for 1,350 rather than for 1,184 and elementary schools for 875 rather than for 796. The increase of 10 to 14 percent allowed school designers to tweak school prototypes without starting over.

At Stone Hill, the sixth- through eighth-graders will be in classrooms outfitted with SMART Boards (interactive electronic whiteboards) and wireless Internet. The school mascot is a stingray, and the school colors are black and green.

Sam C. Adamo, director of planning for Loudoun public schools, said the school might not be filled to capacity soon. An economic slowdown has lulled residential construction in the area. There is a slight drop in projected enrollment at two of Stone Hill's feeder schools in Ashburn as the wave of young families that moved in during the 1990s matures.

But Adamo said growth in Loudoun will continue, with the school system expected to double in 30 years.

Mercer Middle School farther south in Aldie is serving a booming new community. Without relief, the school would be at 264 percent capacity in five years. Only about 20 students from Mercer, those who live north of Route 50, will come to Stone Hill.

A middle school closer to Mercer was scheduled to open in 2008, Adamo said, but difficulties finding a site have pushed the likely opening to 2010. In August, the School Board is expected to vote on a controversial proposal to condemn two properties south of Braddock Road for the school.

Moore said that no matter the school size, the instruction would be the same.

"It's not the size that determines the quality, but the quality of the instructional program and the dedication of the parents and the teachers," he said.

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