HERITAGE HIGH SCHOOL (LEESBURG, VIRGINIA)

'Heritage High School' is a public secondary school located in Leesburg, Virginia, and is part of Loudoun County Public Schools. The principal is Margaret Huckaby. Its naming broke the previous tradition of naming high schools with two words prior to "High School" (Loudoun County High School, Broad Run High School, etc.)
Heritage is located in the southern border of Leesburg, adjacent to J. Lupton Simpson Middle School and Evergreen Mill Elementary School. It does not serve the southern Leesburg community however, due to the very densely populated eastern section of Leesburg, which Heritage currently serves, including the Exeter, Mayfair Commons, Sycamore Hill, Potomac Crossing, Potomac Station, and River Creek communities.

Contents

History

Demographics

Accreditation and Test Scores

Accreditation

SAT Scores

Enrollment History

Athletics

References

History

Heritage opened in 2002 for the eastern Leesburg community, feeding students from Stone Bridge High School and the rest from Loudoun County High School. It was originally expected that Simpson's 8th graders would feed into Heritage, but instead, boundary lines were drawn to have Harper Park Middle School feed into Heritage. The lines were drawn and are still drawn to the point where students who live in communities adjacent to Heritage do not go there for high school and instead go to Loudoun County High.
Like other new high schools that opened in Loudoun County before it, such as Stone Bridge and Potomac Falls, Heritage opened without a senior class, and juniors were allowed to choose which school they wanted to graduate from. Most Heritage students came from the Stone Bridge attendance area, and many rising juniors (Class of 2004) at Stone Bridge chose to stay there rather than go to Heritage. This was somewhat understandable because Leesburg students at Stone Bridge in the class of 2004 attended Simpson Middle School for 6th and 7th grade (1997-1999); went to a brand new Harper Park Middle School for 8th grade (1999-2000); went to a brand new Stone Bridge for their first two years of high school (2000-2002); and then were expected to go to another new school for their last two years. Constant boundary adjustments may have contributed to the large number of rising juniors who wished to remain at Stone Bridge. Consequently, the junior class at Heritage was only about 110 members, rather than about 250 if all juniors were required to go to the new school.
Of the 312 students in the graduating class of 2006, 112 received the governor's seal on an Advanced Studies diploma, one of the highest academic honors offered by the Commonwealth of Virginia.^[1] Like other Loudoun County high schools, Heritage participates in the Advanced Placement program and offers numerous AP courses.

Demographics

In 2005-2006, Heritage's student body was 61% White; 16% Black; 15% Hispanic; 7% Asian, and 1% Native American.

Accreditation and Test Scores

Accreditation

Heritage High School is a fully accredited high school based on the Standards of Learning tests in Virginia.

SAT Scores

The average SAT score in 2006 for Heritage was a 1,532 (518 in Math; 515 in Critical Reading; 499 in Writing).

'School Year'	'Mathematics'	'Critical Reading'	'Writing'	'Total'
2003-2004	485	490	n/a	975
2004-2005	527	523	n/a	1,050
2005-2006	518	515	499	1,532 (1,033 M & CR)

Enrollment History

'School Year'	'Number of Students'
2002-2003	747
2003-2004	1,095
2004-2005	1,340
2005-2006	1,500

Athletics

The mascot is the Pride, in the shape of a Lion. Heritage's sports teams currently play in the AA Dulles District and Region II of the Virginia High School League. The school is well known for its boys basketball team which consistently has made it to Region II play each year.
Heritage teams have done surprisingly well in the 2005-2006 year, in particular with the Pride's boys varsity soccer team making it to the state semifinals before falling 2-1 to AA Dulles District champion Potomac Falls.^[2] Both the girls and boys Track teams won their respective AA Dulles District Titles. The football team also had its first winning season in the 2005-2006 school year, with a 7-3 record, sharing the Dulles District title with Park View High School, but unable to make the playoffs because Park View had more power points in the Virginia High School League’s rating system.^[3]

References

1. Heritage Graduation Marks the End of a Beginning
2. Potomac Falls denies Heritage once again, 2-1 Carl Lukat
3. Heritage takes a lot of Pride in pigskin finale Carl Lukat