On Tuesday, Feb. 13, the Loudoun County School Board held its monthly Tuesday meeting. During the meeting, Rock Ridge was recognized for various accomplishments and contributions during the school year thus far. 

Senior Sanjana Rao has been an active member of the Student Council for three years. She’s part of the school’s theater and debate teams. Rao spoke to the school board about the school’s achievements and plans for upcoming events. 

Superintendent’s Report

During the Superintendent’s Report, Rock Ridge was recognized along with five other LCPS schools placed in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) for literary magazines in Virginia. Rock Ridge’s literary magazine, The Renaissance, placed First Class. “I think we definitely deserve it because we all worked really hard on it, and have spent a lot of time designing and choosing all the pieces; we really tried to pick the best ones that best represent the student body,” Maddineni said. “The design aspects [helped us win], for sure, because I know Mrs. Greiner [along with Susan Spengeman] places a lot of emphasis on that, and we spend two weeks at the end of the year going all out on the design of the Lit Mag. We really want to make it look nice and put a lot of thought into different design elements to emphasize different parts of the pieces we write.” 

Sanjana Rao: Rock Ridge Representative

Senior student representative Sanjana Rao discussed the accomplishments of Rock Ridge High School this year, mentioning various events hosted by the SCA such as homecoming which had over 1000 attendees, hallway decorating which resulted in a win for the junior class, class of clans, a kickball game between the senior and junior classes, and the “Phoenix Pheud” on Feb. 23. 

Rao also discussed athletic accomplishments such as the Men’s Varsity Basketball team holding the current record of 13-6, the Rock Ridge swim team heading to districts, and the Volleyball team scoring 18-5 overall and 9-0 in districts.

The debate team had one team win 4-0 in junior varsity and two teams place in varsity in the recent Washington Arlington Catholic Forensics League (WACFL) competition. They have four qualifiers for metro finals in varsity and seven in junior varsity bringing the overall number of qualifiers to 11 with one more tournament left in the year. 

The school newspaper, The Blaze, was awarded first class and trophy class for the print magazine production and the online content for the 22-23 school year at the Virginia High School League Media Championships respectively. 

The performing arts department performed “Treasure Island” in the fall and “Rent” in January, which they will perform at the International Thespian Festival in June. They were one of the nine schools selected internationally to perform a mainstage show at the festival.

Cell Tower

The Finance and Operations section of the meeting provided updates on the 140 ft cell tower built on Rock Ridge property next to the football stadium. According to the School Board agenda, A Grant of Easement (which is a right to use someone’s property for a specific reason) was proposed for allowing wireless carrier company, Verizon, “to install and maintain fiber optic communication lines for the existing cell tower on the Rock Ridge HS site”

The school board members reviewed the easement to find if there would be any damage done to the school and students by the proposition. The board approved this easement, and chair Melinda Mansfield was authorized to sign the easement agreement.

The next school board meeting will be held on Feb. 27.