As Loudoun County continues to grow, so do the faces that make up its schools.
The Loudoun County Public School system was established in 1870 after the Civil War and served a rural community noted for its dairy farms. As time passed, eastern Loudoun’s farms transformed into developed land made up of housing and shopping centers. Now, land is hard to come by and Loudoun County has become one of the fastest growing and wealthiest counties in the nation.
Its schools, which were once segregated by skin color, now house students from across the country and around the world in top notch facilities.
IT WAS NOT until 1941 that Loudoun County Public Schools established its first all-black high school, Douglass High School in Leesburg.
Up until that point, black high-school students studied on the second floor of the Loudoun County Training School. The hazardous conditions, including broken windows and cramped space, caused black families to search for a better solution.
In the 1930s, the PTA of all-black schools in Loudoun County formed the County Wide League, a body designated to bring concerns and suggestions to the School Board. Each school paid $6 to join the organization.
The league's main concern was the inadequate high-school facility for the county’s black students. So, it decided to take matters into its own hands.
For years, the league held rummage sales, bake sales, ball games, field days and recreation programs, to raise money to purchase land for a new high school.
And it did.
In November 1939, the league bought eight acres of land in Leesburg and sold it to the School Board for $1.
Douglass High School, named after Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist, opened in 1941.
In 1953, the School Board purchased additional land from a neighboring black family and eventually added on new classrooms and a gymnasium.
Douglass High School allowed black students, for the first time in Loudoun County, to plan for a better future.
Douglass High School remained open until desegregation in Loudoun County in 1968. It then became a middle school, and now serves as a alternative school and community center.
TODAY, LCPS classrooms are made up of students from all over the country, and the world.
Park View High School is the county’s most diverse school.
Virginia Minshew, principal of the Sterling school, said Park View is made up of students from more than 50 countries, including Argentinia, Armenia, Bolivia, Cambodia, Iran, Japan, Palestine, Trinidad and Tobago South Korea and Zambia.
"Our diversity makes us more like our society," Minshew said. "Park View High School is a microcosm of the world."
In an effort to make her students feel at home, Minshew hangs flags of students’ home countries from the school lobby’s ceiling.
"They like seeing the flags of their countries, just like we like seeing ours," Minshew said. "I want all of my students to feel at home here."
Mishew said the majority of the student minority population comes from Central and South American countries. Many of her students’ first language is Spanish. In an effort to bridge the gap between home and school and break down the language barrier, Minshew and her staff work hard to translate all documents and phone messages from English to Spanish. LCPS also provides teachers interpreters for parent-teacher conferences, and a phone service teachers and administrators can use for quick translations from English to a number of languages including Farsi, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.
"There are challenges in anything you do," Minshew said. "Our diversity provides us a very rich, colorful, very realistic view of what the world looks like."
WHEN THE BELL RINGS, Mario Vines, student body president of Park View High School, encounters students speaking Spanish and Farsi.
Vines moved from Herndon to Sterling two years ago.
"It’s a lot more diverse here at this school," Vines said. "It’s given me a new perspective on life. It has allowed me to view high school in a different way. I learn from my teachers and my fellow students."
Dilcia Zelaya, a student at Park View High School, moved from a small town in Honduras to Sterling Park in 2002. When she enrolled in Sterling Middle School, she did not speak English. She said she still remembers her first days of school.
"It was scary," she said.
But soon, she mastered the English language and she said "one million doors" opened up for her.
Now, Zelaya is a senior who plans on furthering her studies after she graduates in May.
"In 10n years, I see myself in a good job," Zelaya said. "I want to come back here and say thank you to my teachers who helped me achieve my dreams. It’s amazing."
Vines said students like Zelaya inspired him to learn another language. Vines enrolled in his third year of Spanish at Park View High School this year.
"It’s my effort to reach out to my community," Vines said. "Learning a language has opened so many doors for me."
"If you want something in life, if you really work for it, everything’s possible," Zelaya said. "I think there are a lot of opportunities in this country."
<lst>Reference: Journey Through Time: Events Affecting African Americans in Loudoun County Virginia