In 1816, Charles Fenton Mercer failed in his attempt to establish a system of primary schools. Nearly 200 years later, that smudge on the statesman's record will be removed, perhaps, with the opening of Mercer Middle School in Aldie this fall.
Mercer is one of three new public schools in Loudoun County opening this year, joining Belmont Ridge Elementary School in Ashburn and Smart's Mill Middle School in Leesburg. Just a couple weeks out from opening day, staff members at Mercer were putting on the final touches and getting ready for the onslaught of eager prepubescents.
"We're gonna bust at the seams," said principal Ric Gauriloff as he sat in his not-quite-finished office, surrounded by empty shelves, a shadowbox of fishing lures on the wall and a flotilla of blue office chairs wrapped in plastic. A tiny Mickey Mouse insignia belied the seriousness of his dress shirt.
The school is staffed for 700 students, and two weeks before opening enrollment was at 605 and growing.
"Right now our class sizes are really nice," Gauriloff said. "We have room to grow."
Since his hiring in January, Gauriloff has spent much of his time staffing the school, and he's encouraged by the results. Only three of Mercer's 43 teachers are new college graduates, and only one position remains unfilled: a half-time cooking and sewing instructor to share with Eagle Ridge Middle School.
"I got a very well-seasoned staff," Gauriloff said. "They're very experienced. I'm very lucky. It happened for everyone — for cafeteria, custodial, secretarial — everybody."
MERCER IS en route to being the smartest-looking middle school around in a county full of recently-built facilities. While the school shares a footprint with several other schools, Gauriloff and his staff had a say in every decision, from the color of the carpet in the library to the addition of bulletin boards to the hallway walls.
Van Metre, the company that built Stone Ridge, the subdivision surrounding Mercer, has also contributed to making Mercer a topnotch place. In one case, the company picked up the $4,500 tab for printing student agendas.
A contest to pick the school's mascot ended with two results: the mountain lion emblem that graces the Mercer front office and instant decoration.
"I told them I expected them to decorate the halls," Gauriloff said. The scores of entries, all hand-drawn by future Mercer Mountain Lions, will pepper the hallways come Sept. 7.
Mercer, which cost $41 million to build, is also a completely high-tech facility, with tech-ed computer rooms for seventh- and eighth-graders to learn about everything from injection molds to plastics and polymers.
While the computer modules are more or less in place, Scott Jacobson, the head of the science department, unwrapped microscopes in a classroom full of boxes.
"With science it's a little bit different from the other disciplines because we have all this equipment," said Jacobson, who is a 1987 graduate of Loudoun County High School. Parent volunteers had already spent hours helping Jacobson sort out hot plates, balances and test tubes.
Jacobson left his post at Broad Run High School to help open Mercer for the opportunity to head the department and try out a new situation in the school's cluster of science rooms.
"We have a real unique situation where Mercer's going to be small enough that the third room won't have a teacher," Jacobson said.
WHILE JACOBSON helped open Stone Bridge High School, as did Gauriloff, as assistant principal, Mercer has yet another experienced school-opener on its team: Cheryl Bacak, president of the PTA. She started the PTAs at Little River and Arcola elementary schools.
"It doesn't feel like it's been a huge challenge," she said. "We've just got an incredible group of parents. Everyone's just excited to have a middle school."
There is one change for Mercer parents, however — most of them are graduating, with their children, from elementary programs.
"We're taking it one day at a time," Bacak said.
Bacak is enthusiastic about having Gauriloff in charge. While this is his first time at the helm, Gauriloff has been aiming for a middle-school principalship since graduate school.
"He's an incredible man," said Bacak. "He's bright, he's intelligent, he's caring, the kids relate to him. He's just going to be an incredible principal."