Bill Text: VA HR457 | 2017 | Regular Session | Enrolled
Bill Title: Commending Deep Sran.
Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill
Status: (Passed) 2017-02-24 - Bill text as passed House (HR457ER) [HR457 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2017-HR457-Enrolled.html
WHEREAS, Deep Sran is the founder and academic lead at Loudoun School for the Gifted, a private school for grades six through 12 in Ashburn, and he is spearheading the restoration of a significant piece of Loudoun County history; and
WHEREAS, for two decades, Deep Sran has been on a mission to improve formal education and find new ideas and solutions to make education beautiful for students everywhere; and
WHEREAS, Deep Sran is a teacher, curriculum designer, school founder, academic researcher, and educational technology inventor who has taught in secondary school, college, and graduate school; and
WHEREAS, Deep Sran is coordinator of the Loudoun School for the Gifted's project to restore the Ashburn Colored School, a dilapidated, one-room building where African American children were educated from 1892 to 1959, and the oldest school in Ashburn; and
WHEREAS, few people knew the history of or paid attention to the decaying schoolhouse, now located in the heart of modern Ashburn, until Loudoun School for the Gifted made it its mission to restore the site it purchased in 2014; and
WHEREAS, the Loudoun School for the Gifted's plan to reopen the schoolhouse as a "living museum" was accelerated by a surge of funding and support in the wake of vandalism at the school in the fall of 2016; and
WHEREAS, more than $100,000 has been raised for the Loudoun School for the Gifted's schoolhouse project, and the goal is to open the restored Ashburn Colored School to the public by late spring 2017; and
WHEREAS, Deep Sran is seeking to balance past and present in the restoration of the schoolhouse, leaving as much of the original material as possible in an effort to make it look and feel the way it did when students went to school there; and
WHEREAS, Deep Sran's ultimate vision is to create a center for learning on the 3.l-acre property, with the schoolhouse on one end and a state-of-the-art 14,000-square-foot school building, housing Loudoun School for the Gifted, on the other; and
WHEREAS, the schoolhouse restoration project began as a way for a small group of students to engage with their community while simultaneously learning more about it, but it has since taken on a much larger meaning; and
WHEREAS, Deep Sran hopes to one day tell the human story of what it was like to be a student at the Ashburn Colored School; his final goal is to create not just a typical museum, but a tool that can be used for education in the future; and
WHEREAS, Deep Sran's passion for improving education, and his efforts to restore a site of great historical significance, not only benefits the students of Loudoun School for the Gifted but the Ashburn community as a whole; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, That Deep Sran hereby be commended on the Loudoun School for the Gifted's efforts to restore a significant piece of Loudoun County history; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to Deep Sran as an expression of the House of Delegates' admiration for his innovative vision and important life's work.
