School History: 1980-2000

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.

Color 35 millimeter slide photograph of the front exterior of Edsall Park Elementary School. The picture is believed to date from around 1980. The original main entrance of the building is shown. — Edsall Park Elementary School, located nearby on Edsall Road, closed in 1980.

At Lynbrook, enrollment declined from a peak of 807 students in 1975 to a low of 594 students in 1983. From the mid-1970s until 1989, children from the Saratoga neighborhood south of Springfield were bused to Crestwood, Forestdale, and Lynbrook elementary schools to bolster enrollment, sparing these schools from closure.

Color photograph showing Mrs. Summers' first grade class. 18 children are pictured. They are standing in three rows on a riser placed outside on the sidewalk next to the cafeteria. Mrs. Summers can be seen standing on the far left of the image. — Mrs. Summers' 1st grade class, 1983-84.

The 25th Anniversary

During the week of February 8-12, 1982, students, school staff, and community members celebrated Lynbrook’s 25^th anniversary with parties, an open house, dress-up and spirit days, and a faculty-student basketball game. The celebration began on Tuesday with a cake and punch party. Students gave a gymnastics demonstration and sang our school song to the more than 500 people in attendance. Principal Shirley Bealor told a reporter from the Springfield Independent, “The greatest rewards of the celebration have been the little things, like the child who found out her grandfather was the first custodian here or when the Fire Marshall spoke and it turned out that he had gone to school here.”

Color 35 millimeter slide photograph of the front exterior of Lynbrook Elementary School. The picture is believed to date from the late 1970s or early 1980s. The original main entrance of the building is shown. The windows have white trim and the doors are painted red. — Lynbrook Elementary School, circa 1980.

Festivals and Awards

In the 1980s, Lynbrook's Parent Teacher Association (PTA) held annual Fall Festivals and Shamrock Shindigs. The students published their own newspaper called The Four Leaf Clover. By 1984, students were able to work in a computer lab, and our school held medieval fairs. With the diversification of our student body came the introduction of International Nights, which quickly became a very popular annual tradition.

Color photograph of Mrs. Stockmoe's sixth grade class. 23 children are pictured. They are standing in four rows on a riser placed outside on the sidewalk next to the cafeteria. Mrs. Stockmoe is standing on the right in the second row. — Mrs. Stockmoe's 6th grade class, 1983-84.

In the 1990s, the tradition of winter and spring concerts continued with students performing in the chorus, band, and strings. In 1992, Principal Helene Brower was nominated for the FCPS Principal of the Year Award. Our school celebrated its 40th birthday in April 1997, and the first Head Start class was formed at Lynbrook in 1998.

Color photograph of students lining up to board a school bus. An adult in the foreground is holding up an orange sign with the number four printed on it. Three school buses can be seen parked along the sidewalk on the south side of the school. — Lynbrook Elementary School, January 1994.

Renewal

In July 1992, the Fairfax County School Board awarded the contract for Lynbrook's first school-wide renewal to the V. F. Pavone Construction Company at a cost of $3.5 million.

Color photograph of approximately 60 students and two teachers standing in the driveway loop in front of Lynbrook Elementary School. Behind them, the main entrance to the building has been fenced off and the sidewalk has been removed. A large backhoe is parked behind the children. — Lynbrook Elementary School's 6th grade class, 1992-93.

During the renovation, the main office was extended outward and the clinic was relocated from the front hallway to its present location. In the gymnasium wing, the science room was converted into an art classroom, a stage was added to the gymnasium, and two classrooms for School Age Child Care (SACC) were constructed.

Color photograph of two students sitting at a computer work table. A keyboard, hard drive, and disk drive are visible on the table in front of the children. A CRT monitor and dot matrix printer are on a shelf just above the other computer components. The children appear to be engaged in playing an educational game of some sort. — Lynbrook students at computer workstations, pre-renovation. This computer system appears to be an Apple IIGS. They were first released in September 1986 and were discontinued in December 1992. During the renovation, a computer lab, outfitted with new state-of-the-art equipment, was built next to the new library.

Also during the renovation, the library was relocated from the second floor to the first floor. On the first floor, the building was extended outward to double the size of the library and create additional space for instruction, library offices, and audio visual equipment. The renewal project was completed in 1993.

Photograph of a classroom interior during the renovation. The ceiling tiles and light fixtures have been removed and new heating and cooling duct work is being put in place. Scaffolding is visible in two locations, and a large section of metal duct work is visible on the floor. This may be the original library space being converted to classroom use. — Renovation progress, undated. The extensive $3.5 million renovation replaced major systems throughout our school.

Photograph of the second floor hallway. The ceiling tiles have been removed. A plastic covering of some sort is balled up and pushed against the wall on the left side of the picture. An industrial box fan can be seen about halfway down the hallway on the right. New tiles have been added along the walls and floor of the hallway. — August 31, 1992. Contractors worked long hours during the summer and winter when students were out of the building.

Photograph of the rear of the two-story classroom wing of the building where the new library is being constructed. The foundation of the new library is in place, but the old exterior wall is not yet demolished. The cinderblock wall in the foreground is about three feet high and the space between this new wall and the original exterior is filled with gravel. A section of cinderblock wall reaching up to the height of the second floor is visible in the distance. — December 8, 1992. This is the foundation for the extension of the library. Today, if you look closely at the brick work in our library, you can see where the original exterior wall once stood.

Photograph of a section of the pod classroom wing where part of an exterior wall has been removed. Some construction equipment and supplies are in the foreground. The ground is very muddy and water is pooling in the ruts caused by the tires of construction equipment. — December 8, 1992. During the renovation, this portion of the building was reconfigured to create additional storage space.

Photograph showing the progress of the construction of the new itinerant office and the SACC classrooms. The cinderblock walls for the office are in place, and the concrete foundation of the SACC rooms have been poured. A construction worker can be seen in the distance, standing next to a section of cinderblock wall being erected on the far side of the SACC classroom space. — December 8, 1992. During the renovation, the gymnasium wing was extended and two classrooms for the SACC program were constructed.

Two aerial photographs, side-by-side, showing Lynbrook Elementary School from directly overhead. The photograph on the left is from 1990, pre-renovation, and the photograph on the right is from 1997, post-renovation. In 1990, the building looks almost identical to the aerial photograph taken in 1976 shown on the preceding page. In 1997, a new roof is in place building-wide. The gymnasium, library, and main entrance additions are distinctly visible. Two trailers parked behind the building in 1990 have been removed, and a new blacktop and playground are visible in 1997. Several trees were removed to make way for the extended library, and new trees have been planted outside of the new library. — Aerial views of Lynbrook in 1990 (left) and 1997 (right). Courtesy of the Fairfax County Park Authority.

Yearbooks

The first Lynbrook Elementary School yearbooks begin in the mid-1970s. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the yearbooks were called My Classbooks. Similar to the memory books of the 1960s, the classbooks were printed in black and white.

Photograph of a yearbook page from the 1981 to 1982 classbook. A first grade class is shown. The student pictures are black and white head-and-shoulder portraits. They are arranged in three rows and seven columns. — Mrs. Propp's 1st Grade Class, 1981-82. In classbooks, classes were labeled by grade and name of teacher, but none of the children were named.

In the mid-1980s, the first yearbooks similar to what we have today were printed. Color printing became less expensive during the 1990s, and you begin to see a transition to student-designed cover artwork. Also during this time, it became common to print the names of everyone pictured in the yearbook.

Black and white yearbook photograph, from 1981 to 1982, showing Lynbrook's Safety Patrol officers. Five children and two teacher sponsors are pictured. — Lynbrook's Safety Patrol Officers, 1981-82.

A Glimpse Back in Time

In 1991, Lynbrook Elementary School was the subject of the Fairfax County Public Schools cable television channel series Profile. The Red Apple 21 crew spent several days at Lynbrook, gathering interviews with teachers and classroom footage. The resulting 30-minute documentary provides a fascinating snapshot of Lynbrook in the early 1990s.