By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006
With the fall sports season about to begin, the Loudoun Valley High School cheerleaders practiced their front handsprings and backbends on a recent afternoon. Their limbs flew and their feet landed in a chorus of thuds.
As the girls worked on their routines, a different kind of preparation was underway in the administrative offices.
For the first time since 2002, when the freshman class was transferred to the new Harmony Intermediate School to ease crowding, Loudoun Valley will be nearly at capacity this fall, underscoring the need for a second high school in the rapidly growing western part of the county.
About 1,520 students -- about 100 more than last year -- will flood through Loudoun Valley's doors on Tuesday, cramming into hallways, waiting in lunch lines and devising new strategies to navigate the crowds in the six minutes between classes.
To help manage the influx, the school has added a fourth lunch period at 1:30 p.m., which will keep the lunch lines shorter than last year, Principal Sue Ross said. Ross hired seven additional teachers, a librarian and a counselor, and two conference rooms have been converted to office space to accommodate the additional staff.
Every inch of the school will be occupied, said Ross.
"We're just employing some creative solutions right now," she said.
Eventually, though, creativity won't be enough to manage the crowds. The enrollment is expected to climb to 1,643 by next year and 1,830 the year after that. The capacity is 1,551.
School district officials are hoping to open a new high school a few miles away by fall 2008, a deadline they believe they can meet if the permits are approved expeditiously and the construction goes smoothly.
But it will be a tight schedule, and there are significant obstacles that some say may derail the plan.
Most notable is the town of Purcellville, where Loudoun Valley is located, which has fiercely opposed the plan to build the new school just north of the town's boundary, with the mayor promising to fight the project "tooth and nail" each step of the way.
Town leaders have certainly made good on that promise this summer. They have taken their case to the courts and are even considering condemning some of the land where the school would be built, although they say the latter effort has nothing to do with the school.
While the politicians mull the messy details of building another school, students and teachers are bracing for a crowded school year.
After practice, the cheerleaders sprawled on mats and made posters with markers and poster board, welcoming back students with hand-drawings of footballs and the phrase, "Go Vikes!"
They told stories of hour-long school bus rides last year, gridlocked hallways and lunch lines so long that stragglers barely had time to eat.
"Some people don't even use their lockers, because they know it's going to take too long between classes," said Alison Zook, 17, a senior from Hillsboro.
As freshmen at Harmony Intermediate School, the cheerleaders and their ninth-grade classmates were bused to the high school for pep rallies and homecoming, only to go back to the intermediate school for classes.
They spoke of the need for a new school -- but eventually, not today.
"I think it's a good idea, but I wouldn't like it if it was our class," said senior Alicia Page, 17, of Round Hill, coloring in a capital green 'V' on her poster.
Joyce Phillips, the cheerleading coach and a physical education teacher at Loudoun Valley, carefully stepped around the tangle of legs on the mats, making sure there were as many posters for cross-country and golf as there were for football.
Since 2002, she's seen the enrollment creep back up to the point where she doesn't know all the students by name, she said.
Still, she said, it's nothing that the teachers can't handle.
"We would certainly prefer it to be at a more comfortable number," she said. "But we're teachers. Give us a subject and a bunch of kids, and we're happy."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.