Bill Text: VA SJR224 | 2024 | Regular Session | Enrolled
Bill Title: Commending Mount Eagle Elementary School.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2024-03-07 - Bill text as passed Senate and House (SJ224ER) [SJR224 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2024-SJR224-Enrolled.html
WHEREAS, Mount Eagle Elementary School, an outstanding public primary school in Fairfax County, celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2024; and
WHEREAS, with the significant growth of the Fairfax County community after the end of World War II, Mount Eagle Elementary School was one of four "emergency schools" built by Fairfax County Public Schools to address overcrowding; and
WHEREAS, Mount Eagle Elementary School took its name from the nearby Mount Eagle mansion, former home of the Reverend Bryan Fairfax, the first American-born Lord Fairfax, who was a contemporary of George Washington; and
WHEREAS, originally just a cement building with only four classrooms, Mount Eagle Elementary School opened in 1949 and enrolled about 100 students; by the start of the next school year, enrollment had doubled to more than 200 children, and it became necessary to operate school on a half-day basis, splitting the students into two groups who attended classes in separate morning and afternoon shifts; and
WHEREAS, in its first year of operation, Mount Eagle Elementary School's head teacher, Josephine Gutshall Fox, was named the school's first principal; she oversaw several additions to the original school building to accommodate the continuous student growth during the beginning of the Baby Boom; and
WHEREAS, Mount Eagle Elementary School was racially segregated until the 1965-1966 school year, when all Fairfax County public schools were integrated; today, 70 percent of the student body is Latino and 12 percent is African American; and
WHEREAS, Mount Eagle Elementary School currently enrolls about 330 students, all of whom are inspired by the school's focus on the Three C's: College-bound, Community, and Collaboration; and
WHEREAS, Mount Eagle Elementary School has benefited from the hard work of countless educators and staff members and the leadership of exceptional administrators like its current principal Jean Consolla; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That the General Assembly hereby commend Mount Eagle Elementary School on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 2024; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the Senate prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to Mount Eagle Elementary School as an expression of the General Assembly's admiration for the school's legacy of service to young people in Fairfax County.
