LoudounNow LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 2, No. 14 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
Feb. 9 – 15, 2017 ]
Deep Sran, who’s overseeing the restoration of the historic Ashburn Colored School, balances on the building’s original floor joists. Since the schoolhouse was vandalized last fall, $100,000 was been raised to repair it and open it as a “living museum.”
Restored Schoolhouse to Reopen as ‘Living Museum’ BY DANIELLE NADLER
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s the courts this month worked through how best to discipline the five teens who pleaded guilty to vandalizing the Ashburn Colored Schoolw, a group of educators and builders pressed on in their effort to restore the structure. Donations have poured in the four months since news first broke that the one-room schoolhouse, which served Loudoun’s black students from 1892 to the late 1950s, had been covered in racist and vulgar graffiti. Although few knew about the history of the building, which looks more like a shed than a school, the students and educators at the Loudoun School for
the Gifted had set out months earlier to raise money to repair it. The small private school purchased the property in 2014 with plans to reopen the schoolhouse to the public as a “living museum.” The surge of support in the wake of the vandalism accelerated those efforts. The group has raised the $100,000 needed to return the building to its original state. The brunt of the work to repair the fragile wooden structure begins this week, and passersby will begin to see progress over the next month. The goal is to open the schoolhouse to the public by late spring. “We’re working hard to not change it, but just strengthen it,” said Deep Sran, founder and academic RESTORATION >> 6
Teens Sentence Comes with Homework, Page 6
Lucketts Bluegrass’ tradition in photos
$1.2B Budget Targets Pay, Busing Woes BY DANIELLE NADLER The Loudoun County School Board unanimously agreed on a $1.24 billion spending plan for next fiscal year, shaving just $250,000 off the budget recommended by Superintendent Eric Williams. The budget calls for a $93 million funding boost, and much of that increase will pay for improvements in what Chairman Jeff Morse (Dulles) called “several weak areas,” including mental health services, transportation and employee pay. “The superintendent did a fantastic job of addressing those in this budget,” he said. “Those improvements are not wants but needs and are very important to the health and welfare of our school system.” The adopted budget maintains Williams’ proposal to create unified mental health support teams for each high school. It includes the addition of five psychologists, eight social workers, eight school counselors, two supervisors and two student assistance. The need for more mental health services came up when school board member Tom Marshall (Leesburg) suggested decreasing the number of new psychologist positions from five to three. The motion, which he later rescinded, was met with a surge of opposition from his colleagues. Eric Hornberger (Ashburn) acknowledged that during tight budget seasons, he had voted down recommendations from the school staff to add psychologists, but the events of the past year have changed things, he said. The school system has seen a rise in teen suicides. Its top psychologists and counselors have held emergency preventative workshops to equip students to cope and to encourage them to speak up when they or their friends feel overwhelmed. “We tell them to speak up, but there has to be people there to listen,” Hornberger said in support of hiring more psychologists. Jill Turgeon (Blue Ridge) agreed that it’s vital to have psychologists accessible to students. “Having a professional in the
Douglas Graham/Loudoun Now
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Where will you purchase your next mattress?
BUDGET >> 17
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