Arlington’s oldest elementary school is celebrating its 100th anniversary on Friday with student-centered activities and a community picnic.
Festivities at Barcroft Elementary School will include a human chain beginning at the site of the original Barcroft School and a mini “field day” where students participate in games and activities that kids might have played 100 years ago.
“We are so excited,” Ashley Brown, the school’s PTA president, told ARLnow. “This centennial is a meaningful milestone, and we’re thrilled to bring together students, families, staff and neighbors to honor the school’s history.”
“From food and music to fun activities for children, the evening will showcase the spirit of connection that makes Barcroft so special,” Brown added.
Principal Judy Apostolico-Buck said events will begin on Friday morning with all Barcroft students and staff linking up from the former location of the Barcroft School on S. Buchanan Street, used from 1908–24, to the current building.
“From there, we will gather for a schoolwide assembly that will highlight pieces of Barcroft’s history, unveil a new time capsule to be sealed in our hallway wall and opened in 25 years, and celebrate with both a special centennial song and our school song,” she said.
The community picnic will run from 6:15-8 p.m., rounding out a day organized by Lucy Tschetter of the PTA and Janet Dorn, an English as a Second Language teacher at the school.
Apostolico-Buck said the day aims to provide a mix of fun and new perspectives.
“My hope is that students will come away from this day with a deeper sense of connection and community,” she said. “I want them to understand that their Barcroft education, and the role they play in our school, is bigger than themselves; it is part of a story that has touched generations.”
She added:
“When we opened the time capsule that was placed 25 years ago, students were fascinated by what had changed (the cost of a Happy Meal, the absence of student computers) and also by what was the same (playing Pokémon, reading Harry Potter). Most striking were the hopes and dreams shared by Barcroft students in 2000 — predictions of flying cars and cures for cancer and heartfelt wishes for a world where there are no wars, everyone has jobs, and anyone can become president. These dreams remain powerful for our students today.”
“My hope, as we place this new time capsule, is our students see the continuity between past and present and recognize that they, too, are part of shaping a future worth hoping for,” the principal said.
The upcoming centennial also has provided a chance for former Barcroft students to reconnect with one another.
On a Facebook page highlighting the celebration, former student Liz Weir noted the experience of “weirdly finding out one of my childhood Barcroft friends lives near me now in California, and we’re grown-up good friends now.”
Weir posted that the school provided her with “so many” memories: “Putting ramps in to ride our bikes, rolling down the back hill, spraining my ankle jumping from the gym window, winning the bike figure-8 contest.”
Barcroft has had longer continuous service as an elementary school than any other in Arlington.
The school takes its name from Dr. John Woolverton Barcroft, who came to Virginia in the 1840s and settled in the Columbia Pike area.
During the Civil War, after federal troops returning from the Second Battle of Bull Run damaged the family flour mill, the Barcoft family returned to New Jersey to wait out the war, but returned after. In addition to his service as a physician, Barcroft was responsible for the construction of other homes in the area that now bears his name.
In the earliest days of the 20th century, the small but growing community had a need for a small elementary school. Neighbors established a classroom in the home of a Mrs. Fairfax, who served as the first teacher, in 1906.
The first group of students, in first and second grades totaled 10: Paul and Adaline Marye, Pauline Palmer, Carol Wright, Beulah and Damon Lovelace, Percy and Charles Tillett, Edith Fairfax and Dorothy Payne.
The Barcroft School and Civic League held fundraisers to support new facilities for the growing student population. In 1908, the organization took ownership of a church building at 800 S. Buchanan Street, converting it several years later into a schoolhouse.
The first teacher, a Miss Adams, was from the Vienna area of Fairfax County. She commuted to work each day via the Bluemont branch of the Southern Railway.
At first, there was no money for a janitor, so a rotation among the “town’s leading women” each day came to the building to light a fire and sweep the room. “No greater or more unselfish service could have been rendered,” a history of the school notes.
The school moved out of the building in 1925, but the property — now known as Barcroft House and a historic landmark — continues to be used by the Barcroft School and Civic League.
In 1925, the original four-room, Art Deco-style Barcroft Elementary opened with an enrollment of 65 students at 625 S. Wakefield Street. As the once-rural surroundings exploded in population, renovations and expansions — including major ones in 1945 and 1975 — followed.
At the end of the 2024-25 school year, Barcroft was home to about 500 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
County set to launch elementary-school reading initiative
In other news, Arlington Public Schools is preparing to launch a new initiative aimed at instilling a love of reading among the school system’s youngest learners.
“Readers Rise: Empowering Young Minds Through Reading” will debut at Barrett, Hoffman-Boston and Long Branch elementary schools. Trained community volunteers will work one-on-one with students in reading sessions.
This pilot program is “part of a broader effort by APS to expand volunteers and partnerships to support student literacy and other academic and social-emotional needs,” school officials said in announcing the program.
Its progress will be reviewed both at the midpoint of the school year and at the end.
Superintendent Francisco Durán called reading “the foundation of lifelong learning.”
“With Readers Rise, we are connecting students with caring adults who can spark curiosity, encourage persistence, and show that reading is both powerful and fun,” he said.
The program also aims to build connections between students and the adult volunteers, and to replenish a corps of volunteers in the post-pandemic environment.
“Even one hour a week can make a lasting difference in a child’s life,” said Gerald Mann, chief academic officer at APS. “When students rise as readers, they rise as learners, leaders and future innovators.”
Readers Rise will begin in mid-October and conclude in May.
Fundraising effort launched to support Outdoor Lab facilities
The Arlington Outdoor Education Association (AOEA) has opened the school year with a fund-raising effort to support the Arlington Outdoor Lab.
Gifts will support trail maintenance and signage, native-plant restoration and invasive-species removal, and Animal Lab habitats for fish, turtles, snakes and other animals.
“This academic year, we look forward to welcoming thousands of Arlington Public School students as they share the joy of discovery when they experience science in action,” organization president Scott Kovarovics said.
The nonprofit AOEA owns the recently expanded, 311-acre property in Fauquier County, and since 1967 has partnered with APS on programming for county students at the facility.
“Your back-to-school donation directly supports environmental stewardship of our property and facilities so that Arlington students have this unique, hands-on opportunity that expands academic achievement and enhances social skills,” Kovarovics said in a fundraising letter.
He noted “the magic that happens at the Outdoor Lab when learning moves beyond four walls and into the great outdoors.”
