The Connection

On Sept. 30, 1974, the doors of Orange Hunt Elementary School in Springfield opened to students from the surrounding communities in Burke, Hunt Valley and Keene Mill to a school that featured the “open classroom” concept.

This school recently celebrated their 50th anniversary, and a proclamation was filed marking this occasion for the school that did away with the open classrooms with a renovation that was completed in 2003.

Orange Hunt students gathered on the stairs out front for the 50th anniversary.  

Springfield Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) was on hand when notice of the proclamation was presented to the school during a celebration that day. “Mister Chairman, I ask without objection that staff prepare a resolution to recognize Orange Hunt Elementary’s 50th Anniversary and for its contributions to the surrounding community. This resolution will be presented outside the boardroom at the Orange Hunt Elementary’s Anniversary celebration on Sept. 30.”

There were some parents at the celebration that attended the school when it first opened and now have children that go there, and a few past attendees showed up to recognize the school. The open classrooms are what everyone remembered.

Open Classrooms

According to an article in "Education Next," the open classroom concept started in England after World War II and became popular in the United States in the 1960s and the 1970s. "’Open classrooms’ focus on students’ ‘learning by doing’ and this resonated with those who believed that America’s formal, teacher-led classrooms were crushing students’ creativity," the article said. Orange Hunt was one of the few schools in Northern Virginia that experimented with this, as was a new wing at Hayfield Elementary School that was added to around 1972. Elements of this concept included tables of students instead of individual desks and "tote trays," instead of desks where the notebooks and pencils were stored.

Another school in the new design category is Terra Centre Elementary in Burke which opened in September 1980 but instead of open classrooms, the school was partially underground to make it more energy efficient. There were three feet of soil on top and windows peaking out on the sides in some places. The open classroom concept was tweaked a little so the school was divided into four circular learning pods, each containing eight pie-shaped classrooms.

In July 2013, a major renovation at Terra Centre expanded the entrance and extended the cafeteria. Terra Centre has a sister school in Reston called Terraset Elementary School of similar design. Newington Forest Elementary School is another nearby school that also celebrated their 50th anniversary recently and Herrity presented a proclamation there too.

Editor’s Note: Article author Mike Salmon attended Hayfield Elementary School in 1973 where there was a new wing with open classrooms. He remembers the tote trays, moveable coat closets and no desks. The whole fifth and sixth grades were in a huge open space they called “The Pod.”