The VaDeatles perform at the school’s 25th anniversary celebration.
Just over 25 years ago, then-Fairfax County Public Schools Principal Susan DeCorpo was interviewing potential teachers for what would be the first staff of Ormond Stone Middle School. In a speech she delivered at the school’s 25th anniversary event on Thursday, April 28, she recalled when Stone was just “heaps and piles of earth,” and she was conducting interviews in trailers in the midst of a construction zone.
Now, two and a half decades after the first students roamed the halls of Stone, current and former faculty, other staff members and students put on a special event to commemorate the milestone.
“Wonderful, wonderful staffs have ensured that over the years, students have succeeded and gone on to do some great things — and they’ve had some fun while doing it,” DeCorpo said. “May the school always be as beautiful as it is tonight.”
In addition to speeches by both former principals, the anniversary event included musical performances by the Stone Middle School orchestra and chorus as well as The VaDeatles, a rock band composed of Stone teachers.
Current Stone Middle School Principal Amielia Mitchell and Director of Student Services Zena Chapman also honored four teachers who have taught at the school since its opening in 1991: Social Studies teachers Liz Deal and Natalie Kauffman, Resource teacher Sandy Lombard and English teacher Sarah Curtin.
Deal, also one of the lead singers of the VaDeatles, taught U.S. History to 7th graders for her first 21 years at Stone. As the 2015-2016 school year approaches the end, Deal is currently wrapping up her fourth year teaching 8th grade Civics. While times have changed certain things about Stone over the last two and a half decades, she said that the school has remained the same in the most important way.
“The community around the school has changed, so we have gotten much more diverse,” Deal said. “Technology has also changed all the subjects and has evolved how we teach the kids. What’s stayed the same, though, is the family feel. All of the staff is so connected. We really are a family.”
Lombard also said that what has kept her at Stone has been the tight-knit community that the teachers have forged over the years. While she said it’s hard to believe 25 years have already passed, the fellowship has undoubtedly played a major role in keeping her at Stone.
“Through the years, with big classes and small classes, we have remained a family,” Lombard said. “We look after each other.”
Even those newer to Stone find that the support both in and around the school makes it a special place to work.
“The best thing about Stone is the community,” said Principal Amielia Mitchell, who has been at the school for three years. “We have a wonderful teaching staff, amazing students and supportive parents.”
While middle school isn’t always the easiest time in a student’s life, Mitchell said that Stone is unique in that it offers a full spectrum of services and programs to ensure that every student has the opportunity to maximize their academic potential.
“We are fortunate to have so many great schools in Fairfax County and I absolutely love Stone,” she said. “At Stone, our goal is to ‘keep the dream’ alive for every student by providing learning opportunities that promote academic excellence. We are dedicated to developing the whole child by providing a productive learning environment, one in which all students’ physical, emotional, social and cognitive growth is fostered.”
After the VaDeatles sang their last song on Thursday night and Mitchell invited everyone in the audience to the cafeteria for cake, all of the teachers and administrators present gathered for a group picture on the same bleachers that the chorus had stood on just an hour earlier.
Scott Phillips, the principal of Stone from 2008 through 2013, summed up the aura of Stone in his address earlier in the evening: “Middle school is the time that kids never want to return to. We just hope they get one little seed here that helps make them the people they turn into, or that they find something while here that they really love. I myself am truly grateful for my time here. There were lots of babies, marriages and even retirees. Everyone here supported me as my own family grew. I’m very proud to have been a part of Stone’s history.”