LAKE BRADDOCK SECONDARY SCHOOL

'Lake Braddock Secondary School' is a combined junior-high and high school in Burke, Virginia administered by Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). It is one of four secondary schools in Fairfax County, the other three being, Hayfield Secondary School, Robinson Secondary School and South County Secondary School. Opened in 1973, Lake Braddock is currently in the process of a three year, $55 million dollar renovation, the largest renovation project in the history of FCPS. It will be completed during the 2006-2007 school year. Its mascot is the Bruin Bear, and its school colors are purple and gold.

Contents

History

Demographics

Test scores

Alumni

Athletics

Music and arts

Clubs

Renovations

See also

External links

History

When the school opened in the fall of 1973, it was comprised of students reassigned from nearby Robinson Secondary School to the west and West Springfield High School to the south. Interestingly enough, Lake Braddock was built without walls in most of its educational areas, as it was believed by the administrators of the era that teenage students would learn better in an "open" environment. When school officials realized a school without walls was more distracting to students, they rushed to install temporary walls around many classrooms in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This, however resulted in many air conditioning and heating problems throughout the building, which has continued up until around the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year, with most of these issues fixed from the ongoing renovation. Other than expanding the school and refurnishing the entire existing building, two main goals of Lake Braddock's renovation are a complete overhaul of its circulation system and to transform the school into a more "closed" learning environment.

Demographics

In 2005-2006, Lake Braddock's student body was 58% White; 8% African American; 11% Hispanic; 20% Asian and 3% Middle Eastern.

Test scores

Lake Braddock is a fully accredited school based on the Standards of Learning tests in Virginia. The average SAT score in 2005 for Lake Braddock was a 1655 (549 Critical Reading, 570 Math, and 536 Writing).

Alumni

★ Greg Eklund (class of 1988), drummer. Member of the alternative rock band Everclear 1994-2003.

★ Julia Campbell (class of 1979), actress. Has appeared on television shows such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld" as well as many others.

★ Susan Williams (class of 1987), Olympic bronze medalist in the triathlon 2004

★ Retesh Bhalla (class of 2000), Professional Wrestler "Sonjay Dutt" on Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) on Spike TV.

★ Hubert Davis (class of 1988), played 12 seasons in the NBA, now an ESPN college basketball studio analyst

★ Mia Hamm (class of 1989), professional women's soccer player

★ Allen Johnson (class of 1989), track and field star and Olympic gold medalist for whom the school's track is named

★ Trish Tillman (class of 1993), artist

★ Chris Kinard (class of 1997), Executive Producer of "The Junkies" radio show on WJFK FM

★ Alissa Imre Geis (class of 1994), children's book author and illustrator

★ Ed Moses (class of 1998), swimmer and Olympic gold medalist

★ Charles Harrell (class of 1981), Veterans History Project volunteer and published work of 30 Historical Tableaus at ''History's Moments Revealed''[1]

★ Yousef Abu-Taleb (class of 1998), actor

★ Bret Oliverio (class of 1999), "Bret Michaels," Assistant Producer on the "Junkies" radio show. In March 2006, he won $50,000 on Calvin Ayre Wilcard Poker show seen on Fox Sports Net.

★ Chad Sisson (class of 1997), "Chad Dukes" from "The Big O and Dukes Show" on WJFK 106.7FM in Washington, D.C.

★ Tiffany Dupont (class of 1999), actress. Former Miss University of Georgia. Principal cast member for "The Bedford Diaries" on The CW. Has also appeared in "Grounded For Life," "Yes, Dear" and "Joan of Arcadia".

★ Travis Morrisson (class of 1990), musician/artist. Solo artist and former vocalist for seminal alternative rock band Dismemberment Plan.

★ Eric Axelson (class of 1989), musician/artist. Bass player for Dismemberment Plan and Maritime.

Athletics

Lake Braddock has a wide variety of high school sports. The school competes in the Patriot District, which is in the Northern Region of the Virginia High School League. Lake Braddock's biggest rivals have traditionally been West Springfield High School and Robinson Secondary School, but the rivalry with Robinson has become less intense due to Robinson moving to the Concorde District before the start of the fall 2005 season. Lake Braddock is well known for its Lady Bruins track and cross-country teams, which have received more state titles than any other team in Virginia. The school's football team compiled the best overall record of any program in the Northern Region during the 1990s under the guidance of Coach Dahl. In the 1999-2000 season, Coach Dahl's final season, they went undefeated in the regular season. However, during the 2000 era and beyond, Lake Braddock has struggled to assemble a potent football team. It has gotten better during the 2005 season where it finished above .500 for the second time in the 21st century. During the 2005-2006 football season the Lake Braddock Bruins made the greatest ever single season turn-around in northern VA sports history with a record of 6-4. The previous season the team had gone 0-10.
The school has earned a reputation of a running school as the track and field and cross-country teams have some of the best records in Northern Virginia.
The school has retired two numbers in basketball and one in football. In 1994, the number "44" was retired in honor of former basketball player and then current member of the New York Knicks, Hubert Davis. In 1999, the school retired number "50" in basketball and number "34" in football in honor of Donnie Lindsey (1980-1999) who died during the fall of his freshman year at the University of Richmond.

Music and arts

Lake Braddock has also a wide variety of music and arts programs, including an orchestra (under the leadership of Stephanie Holmes and Beth Reed) and award-winning band (under the direction of Roy Holder, Lou Bean and Mike Luley), as well as choral (directed by Megan Cartwright) and theatre (directed by R. L. Mirabal) programs. The marching band (directed by Roy Holder) has won the prestigious Virginia Honor Band Award for 26 consecutive years, more than any other high school in the Commonwealth. The Lake Braddock Theatre has obtained honors and awards including three District One-Act Play Championships (1996, 2000, 2006), the first ever Cappies awarded for Best Play (2000). Their productions have been given 49 Cappie nominations and 13 Cappie awards, including, for their 2006-2007 Cappie show: Hamlet, nominations for Sound Design, Lighting Design, Props/Special Effects, Lead Actor in a Play, and Female Vocalist. They took home the award for Lead Actor in a play for Cameron Ducette's performance as Hamlet. They were invited to perform at the American High School Theatre Festival at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2003.

Clubs

Lake Braddock maintains a large student club body, of over 50 clubs.1 The clubs include more notable 'It's Academic' which scored high in the last competition. Fairfax County offers sport-club status to some clubs, including the successful LB Crew Team, and LB Debate Team. New activities were started in the 2006-2007 such as the Medical Interest Club and Air Rifle Club. Also, Lake Braddock has a non school sponsored hockey team, however, the school doesn't recognize the team as official. Also, the school's Speech/ Forensics team has been revived in the 2007 school year. The school sent a reprensentive (Jeremy Thompson) all the way to the State Touranament in Harrisonburg, VA where he soly represented Lake Braddock and took third in the State. Lake Braddock also maintains 4 middle school clubs.

Renovations

Currently the school is going under extensive renovation. The renovations have cost taxpayers around $55 million in all. Fifty-two classroom trailers were installed on campus to accommodate the construction. Renovation of the school entered its final phases in June 2006, when work on the cafeteria was started. The renovation has also forced the school to have the graduation ceremony for both the class of 2006 and 2007 at the Patriot Center, because of work on the football field. Renovation of the school is scheduled to be completed during the spring of 2007. The Renovation of the school, as of January 2007 has reached the final phases, with work still going on in the music, home economics, and foreign language wings of the school.

See also

★ Lake Braddock Orchestras

★ Lake Braddock Chorus

External links

★ Lake Braddock Secondary School

★ Lake Braddock Band

★ Lake Braddock Orchestra

★ Lake Braddock Theatre

★ Lake Braddock Chorus