Old School's Makeover Is Nearly Complete

New Look to Debut At Loudoun High

Loudoun County High School was still a cacophony of construction last week. In the lobby, visitors were greeted by the buzzing of drills, the clank of metal pipes and this sign: "Please pardon our dust while we give this old gal a complete makeover."

The Leesburg high school, built in 1953, is in the final days of a two-year, $19.3 million renovation -- one of nine rebuilding projects underway as the district strives to bring some of its oldest schools up to the standards of its newest ones.

Among the changes at Loudoun County High, the oldest of the district's 10 high schools, are a new math-and-arts wing, an auxiliary gym, four glass-enclosed walkways connecting the second-floor wings, new heating and air-conditioning systems, metal bleachers in the stadium and an updated auditorium.

"One of our guiding principles is that whatever we get in this renovation is what's going in the new schools," said the school's principal, Bill Oblas.

Pressure to modernize the district's older schools grew in 2002, when parents started agitating for funding to overhaul several of the facilities. They brought pictures of rusted locker rooms and outdated features to School Board meetings and wrote letters to their representatives. After parents, School Board members and county supervisors took a bus tour that highlighted disparities between old and new schools in Leesburg, the board made a priority of bringing the older schools up to speed.

"We realized we needed to renovate the older schools to create parity," said School Board Chairman Robert F. DuPree Jr. (Dulles). "We didn't want a two-tier system."

Renovation of the county's four oldest middle schools -- Sterling, Blue Ridge, Seneca Ridge and J. L. Simpson -- is near completion. The schools were built in the 1970s with few windows, a design that saved energy but shut out natural light and does not meet modern security standards, which call for greater visibility. In November, voters will be asked to approve a $12.4 million bond to finish the rebuilding project, which has exceeded original cost estimates because of the rising price of fuel and materials, said Loudoun schools spokesman Wayde B. Byard.

Rolling Ridge Elementary and Sugarland Elementary are in the first year of two-year renovations and additions, and the Academy of Science at Dominion High School is undergoing upgrades.

At Loudoun County High, one of the crowning features of the school's makeover is "absolutely, in my mind, the most beautiful library in the district," Oblas said during a tour last week. The library moved from a corner on the second floor to a central location on the first floor and is now lined with cherry wood shelves.

Some things are possible in the upgrades and others are not, Byard said. Board members decided they could provide the older schools with the same instructional capabilities as the county's most modern facilities but could not afford to make them look exactly like the new buildings.

That is just as well, said Loudoun County High guidance counselor Carol Zimmerman, because many students and faculty members at the school like the building's character. Older features such as columns are increasingly unusual in a county that has built six high schools from the same architectural template since 2000.

"Everybody's response when they walk in here is, 'Wow.' There is just so much history everywhere," Zimmerman said.

After the district moved the high school's graduation ceremony to George Mason University several years ago, history-conscious students petitioned to move it back to the front lawn of their campus, she said. And when the school's worn slate stairs were declared unsafe by federal bureaucrats, students and teachers were upset.

"There is a certain attachment to those deep indentations that represented thousands of students that went before," she said.

The old steps have been replaced by new slabs of the same green slate. But Oblas kept three of the original steps and plans to display them.

Oblas said last week that construction work was about 95 percent finished. In every room, there was a ladder with a set of paint-splattered work boots three rungs up and another worker's head somewhere above the recessed ceiling, while dozens more workers circled around them. They were all pushing to get the historic building ready for its grand reopening.