LEESBURG, Va. — One student smiled and nodded hello to the tour group as she entered a glass-walled laboratory-styled space and began poring over a collection of charts, graphs and reports.
Directly below, on the ground floor of the facility and by way of that same wall, another one of her classmates could also be watched as he repaired a car, in a service bay rivaling any found in a commercial garage.
Two students: one regarding her data and the other getting his hands dirty.
In the view of Monongalia County Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr., he was witnessing the future of education here at home.
Said glimpse was coming by way of the Academies of Loudoun, an elite magnet school in Leesburg, Va., a historic town and the county seat of bustling Loudoun County, in Northern Virginia.
Depending upon which way you’re steering, Leesburg is either 38 miles from Washington, D.C., or 38 miles from Martinsburg, in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
This past Monday, Campbell arranged for a charter bus that steered him and 59 others — teachers, principals and Board of Education members — to the aforementioned school.
Campbell is using the Academies of Loudoun, in fact, as inspiration for The Renaissance Academy — a standalone school devoted solely to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) he hopes to have open for Mon’s high school students three years from now.
Taxpayers on their May primary ballots will be asked to consider the nearly $143 million bond it would take to get it built on an expanse of reclaimed land overlooking Interstate 79.
Meanwhile, the Academies of Loudoun boasts a full range of STEM offerings in its three-level, concrete, chrome-and-glass building, which was put up for $125 million in 2018 and has a 119-acre wooded campus doubling as an outdoor learning lab.
“The more I walk through the door,” Campbell mused last week in Leesburg, “the more I say, ‘I have to have one.’”
Plural, for a reason
It’s “academies,” because the school that is a showcase for Loudoun’s public district actually houses three such initiatives under its roof.
There’s the Academy of Engineering and Technology, with its emphasis on STEM and the obvious entrepreneurial tie-in.
And the Academy of Science, which bridges the worlds of scientific research and the humanities.
The Monroe Advanced Technical Academy is the place for students drawn to traditional offerings in career technical education — upgraded with enhanced academic rigor and plenty of the professional certifications that can make for instant job offers during the interview.
Which is why Campbell and local school board members are campaigning for such an enterprise here.
The above students spied through the glass?
Maybe medical school and engineering school will be part of their futures.
Then again, maybe they’ll go right into the workforce, with trajectories stronger than college graduates, even, applying for the same job.
Which is exactly what Campbell and other Renaissance Academy proponents want to see here.
They want to see their school geared to the needs of Morgantown and Mon’s ever-burgeoning business community, so young people here won’t have to live somewhere else to make a living.
“That’s why we have to get this right,” as Mon BOE President Ron Lytle repeatedly says during discussions about the Renaissance Academy.
Mission-mantra
On an overcast, rainy Monday last week, Academies of Loudoun Principal Tinell Priddy greeted the sojourners from the Mountain State with tours and a quick primer of the school’s mission statement.
She taught high school math and engineering in neighboring Fairfax County and was also an instructor at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., before being named top administrator at the Academies.
Priddy was the founding principal of the Academies.
She was a key member of its design team — probably the key member, in fact.
And that was even before the first ceremonial shovel of earth was turned at the end of Sycolin Road, which launched the construction eight years ago.
Today, 2,300 students in the three groupings are governed by four breakout words in the mission statement, Priddy said.
“Explore, research, collaborate, innovate,” the principal said, calling out the lexicon quartet.
“That’s the heart of everything we do, every day.”
Any number of things
Using ACT test scores, which are the main benchmark for West Virginia high school graduates going to college, students at the Academies in the state next door are hovering in the neighborhood of 36, the coveted perfect score on the exam.
Last year, according to numbers culled by the school, students in the Academy of Science netted a composite score of 34.
Their counterparts in the Academy of Engineering and Technology pulled a composite 31 on the test.
Monroe Advanced Technical Academy students averaged 25 — just one point shy of composite score of 26 for Loudoun County Public Schools.
The writing on the wall (and other impressions)
With all those labs and workspaces and all those students who are high-fliers in their respective core schools — they rotate in and out in staggered schedules that don’t disrupt classes or extracurricular activities, as Campbell wants for The Renaissance Academy here — the Academies of Loudoun was designed, with Priddy’s input, to be a light, airy space.
There are those massive windows and glass walls, which, the principal said, demystify a STEM school while also letting in plenty of natural light — even on that cloudy day with its bouts of rain last week in Leesburg.
Add those to the Commons Area with the Jumbotron-styled TV screen for announcements and on-the-fly assemblies.
Everything is on rollers so things can be shifted for whatever comes up.
Mix in the collaborative areas with the “Wink” walls, so named for the coating that allow students to write equations and other concepts on them, which can then be easily wiped away for the next round.
Winking since 2018, and not one bout of obscene graffiti — yet — Priddy said, with a bemused grin.
There are the Monroe Academy students building houses for the Leesburg community, in a Habitat for Humanity-styled outreach.
And, the principal said, there’s the overall vibrancy of the place, academic and otherwise, that students bring in daily.
Taxpayers, however, didn’t support the Academies of Loudoun early on. The bond call for its construction failed five times in a row.
It finally passed, Priddy said, after the concept that would become the Academy of Engineering and Technology was incorporated into the plan.
That’s because Loudoun County, the principal said, is “heavy” on information technology.
“You need to ask, ‘What does your county need? What do your students want?’”
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