Rose Hill Elementary School

Here follows a history of the school as prepared by Fairfax County Public Schools and published on the school website:

Rose Hill Elementary School opened on September 3, 1957. Our school originally had 20 classrooms and an opening enrollment of 482 students. Rose Hill was built on land that was formerly part of a farm. When our school opened the Rose Hill neighborhood was only a few years old. There was no John Marshall Library next door and there were no houses across the street.

Rose Hill Elementary School's first principal was Rose S. Rogers. During the 1950s, there were no school counselors, physical education teachers, or music teachers. Physical education was taught by classroom teachers in their rooms or through structured play outside. Music instruction was held in a small activity room that also doubled as a storage space for physical education equipment.

The Baby Boom:
Rose Hill Elementary School opened during the post-World War II period known as the baby boom. In September 1952, there were 20,200 students enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) at 42 schools. By December 1959, that number would climb to 54,100 students at 84 schools. FCPS administrators had been projecting record enrollment growth for several years, but were unprepared when actual growth far exceeded their expectations. From September 1957 to September 1960, enrollment at Rose Hill skyrocketed from 482 to 672 students. Enrollment peaked at 766 students in June 1963, then gradually fell to around 600 during the late 1960s.

Integration:
During the decade of the 1960s several major changes happened in the public schools of Fairfax County. In 1960, FCPS opened its first intermediate schools. Prior to this time, elementary schools educated children in grades 1-7, and high school consisted of grades 8-12. Seventh graders from Rose Hill were assigned to the newly built Mark Twain Intermediate School.

When Rose Hill opened, public schools in Virginia were segregated by race. In the early 1960s, FCPS began a slow process of desegregation, culminating at the end of the 1965-66 school year. Prior to this time, African-American children living in our area were bused to Drew-Smith Elementary School, an all-African-American school located at Gum Springs on Route 1.

In 1965, almost every former all-African-American FCPS elementary school ceased operation (one notable exception is Louise Archer Elementary School in Vienna). These schools were located in predominantly African-American enclaves, necessitating the busing of students out of these neighborhoods to formerly all-white schools. In 1968, the Fair Housing Law was passed, eliminating racial barriers to homeownership. Rose Hill's student body remained largely Caucasian until the 1970s, by which time the effects of the passage of the Fair Housing Law began to be evident in Fairfax County’s suburbs.

Kindergarten:
Did you know that when Rose Hill opened there were no kindergarteners in our school? A kindergarten program was piloted in several schools in 1967 and proved so successful that one year later FCPS implemented kindergarten county-wide. FCPS enrolled approximately 8,000 children in kindergarten in September 1968.

Renovations and Additions:
Rose Hill Elementary School was designed in 1955 by the architecture firm of Willgoos and Chase. Our school originally had 20 classrooms, a library, administrative offices, a clinic, and a cafeteria. Rose Hill was built by the Reid Construction Company at a cost of $507,150. The first addition to our school was built from 1970-71 by the White Construction Company. A gymnasium, music room, and seven classrooms were added at a cost of $521,720, increasing the building capacity from 600 to 810 students. Rose Hill received its first building-wide renewal from 1992-93, and a second addition was constructed in 1999-00. Prior to the 1993 building renewal, Rose Hill Elementary School had no central air conditioning. Window-mounted air conditioning units are still visible on some of the classrooms.

Virginia Hills Elementary School:
From the mid-1970s into the early 1980s, student enrollment began a gradual decline resulting in the closure of several schools in the eastern part of Fairfax County. The closures affected neighborhoods that saw the earliest growth post-World War II. The children in these neighborhoods were graduating high school, and there were fewer families in the area with young children. By May 1978, enrollment at Rose Hill had fallen to 365 students. In January 1982, the School Board voted to close nearby Virginia Hills Elementary School permanently and consolidate its student body into Rose Hill beginning in September 1982.

After Virginia Hills closed, the building was designated the FCPS Area I Office. Our library maintains a small selection of Virginia Hills memorabilia, such as school yearbooks, photographs, newspaper clippings, and a history written by its P.T.A.

Swim and Stay Fit:
In the late 1960s, Rose Hill Elementary School students began receiving swimming and water safety instruction as part of their regular physical education program. Principal Joseph Hucks, Jean Medford (a Red Cross swimming instructor), Gladys Thomas and Mike Wells (physical education teachers), and Meadowview Pool partnered to introduce the "Swim and Stay Fit Program" at Rose Hill. The program made it possible for every child to learn basic swimming skills, and encouraged children to improve their physical fitness through swimming.

The Virginia Wright Library:
Our library is named for Rose Hill Elementary School's first librarian, Virginia Wright. Miss Wright retired in 1976, and in May of that year the Fairfax County School Board passed a resolution naming our library in her honor. The School Board praised Miss Wright for her years of faithful and loyal service to Rose Hill and for her dedication to inspiring children to read and enjoy good books and other forms of literature as an aid to their educational development.

Our Principals:
Between 1957 and 2018, Rose Hill Elementary School had 12 principals. Rose S. Rogers (1957-60), Carlene D. March (1960-64), Walter L. Sickles (1964-65), Joseph B. Hucks (1965-78), Douglas W. Dalton (1978-80), William "Bill" Dudgeon (1980-82), Marcia Sweedler (1982-84), Sandra O. Culmer (1984-90), Marcy Mager (1990-2005), Terri Czarniak (2005-11), Elizabeth L. Obester (2011-18)


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Here follows a history of education in Rose Hill as written by Carl Sell, Jr. for the Rose Hill Civic Association:

Schools - First Priority:
It didn’t take long for the new residents of Rose Hill to start beating the drum for an elementary school. In fact, the School Board and the Board of Supervisors responded by placing a bond issue on the November 1955 ballot. It passed and the school opened in September of 1957. The cost was $502,016 for a 20-classroom structure. By contrast, the most recent expansion of 10 classrooms that opened in 2001 cost $2,256,500!

From December of 1954 until Rose Hill Elementary opened, students attended nearby Virginia Hills Elementary (1955-56) and Bush Hill Elementary (1956-57). In 1958, Rose Hill had more than 500 students, about half from Rose Hill and the rest from the communities of Ridgeview Estates, Wilton Woods, Clermont and Franconia Estates. Clermont and Wilton Woods Elementary later were opened to serve those communities. Wilton Woods since has become an administrative office, as has Virginia Hills with students from that community attending Rose Hill.

In the early days, junior and high students from Rose Hill made the long trip to old Mount Vernon High School located near Engleside on Route #1. In 1954, there were only six high schools in all of Northern Virginia: Mount Vernon, George Washington in Alexandria, Washington-Lee in Arlington, Falls Church, Fairfax and one way out in the country named Herndon. As an undistinguished member of the baseball team at Mount Vernon, the author recalls taking a packed lunch along for the bus ride to Herndon for a game.

Fortunately, Robert E. Lee High School opened in Springfield in 1958, so the bus ride to school was considerably shorter. Fairfax County also switched to an intermediate school program (now called Middle Schools) and Mark Twain was among the first. At the same time voters were approving the bonds for Rose Hill Elementary, another passed in the amount of $955,927 for Twain. It opened with 42 classrooms in 1960.
In 1960, voters approved bonds totaling $2,603,800 for the construction of Edison High School and the new high school opened with 42 classrooms in 1960. And who can forget the sale of light bulbs for the new lights at the football stadium. We all bought enough to last a lifetime. Some of you still probably have the bulbs you bought in the 1960s stored in the closet!

In the late 1960s, the School Board purchased 40 acres on Franconia Road (now the site of Clermont Park), with the idea of building another high school. The idea was to open a new academic high school and turn Edison into a vocational school. The idea flopped in the community and the Park Authority negotiated a long-term lease in the land to help meet the needs for active recreation.

The early residents of Rose Hill realized that good schools were the key to thriving community. The new elementary school opened on September 3, 1957 and just eight days later, the first Parent Teacher Association meeting was held. The first order to business was to raise funds for some much-needed equipment. The Rose Hill Civic Association pitched in to purchase a freezer for the cafeteria. Over then years, the PTA has provided exemplary support for the school, its staff and the community. Who can forget those scrumptious spaghetti dinners! (We understand the recipe for sauce for 500 diners still exists).

And, many veterans of the Rose Hill PTA moved on to help get Twain and Edison up and running. A former administrator at Edison once said that if he need help he always came to Rose Hill "because that’s where the workers are." Since those early days, Rose Hill Elementary, Twain and Edison have been greatly expanded. Bonds were approved for a 10-clasroom addition to Rose Hill in the amount of $521,720 in 1970, another addition and renovations totaling $3,367,000 in 1990 and the $2,256,500 10-classroon addition in 1997.

Twain went 26 years before bonds totaling $4,524,500 were approved for additions and renovations in 1986. Recently, $2,271,00 was approved for a 10-classroom addition in 1995 and 12 more in the amount of $3,395,748 were approved in 1999 and recently completed.

The Industrial Arts addition was added to Edison in the form of a $547,798 bond approval in 1965. In 1984, the school was renovated; six classrooms and additional support space for the library were added. The school is due for a major renovation/overall with funds to start the process proposed for the ballot in 2002.

Do you recall the uproar when vandals stole the Edison Eagle from the front of the school? It took months, but Detective Billy Lamb of the Fairfax County Police, working mostly on his own time, finally tracked down the perpetrators and recovered the damaged bird in the gravel pits in what is now Kingstowne. The Eagle was restored and returned to its perch.