Bonnie Brae Elementary School

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

What's in a Name?
Learn about the origin of our school's name in this video produced for Fairfax County Public Schools’ cable television channel Red Apple 21:

Bonnie Brae Elementary School on Sideburn Road opened in 1988. Bonnie Brae is a neighborhood school which means it's named for the community where the school is located the phrase Bonnie Brae is Scottish for Pleasant Hill. Bonnie Brae's mascot is a Scottie dog in recognition of the Scottish roots of its name. The land where Bonnie Brae School now stands was at one time owned by Alexander and Nellie White for whom Nellie White Lane is named. The Whites were an African-American family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The area along Sideburn Road and Zion Drive was home to a growing African-American community of farmers and laborers called Sideburn. The community took its name from a train station on the Orange and Alexandria rail line located where present-day Sideburn Road ends. The station was built on land owned by relatives of Union General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside is remembered for his unique style of facial hair, a mustache blended with thick bushy cheek whiskers. This style was originally called Burnside's after the general but by the 1880s the word Burnside's got flipped around and the term sideburns was coined. The train station was given the name Sideburn as a reference to the general. Residents of the Sideburn community established the Sideburn Colored School around 1915 on Zion Drive.
Area families repeatedly petitioned the school board to maintain the school, but according to records, by the late 1920s the board had closed the school and transferred the children to the Pearson Colored School in Burke. Today, Bonnie Brae Elementary School carries on the rich tradition of education in the Sideburn community.