'You Can See It:' Harrisonburg's New Rocktown High School Building Shapes Up
When constructing a new school, one day it can look like a bunch of beams and concrete, and then the next you can see what it will ultimately look like.
Rocktown High School opens in 2024
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Super excited for this, the project page looks awesome. Will be a beautiful school. It's situated on a hill overlooking 81 and will get tons of natural light, as the article says. The article also says it will hold over 1,000 students, though I am not sure how accurate this is. The 2022 ADM numbers had Harrisonburg High at a little over 1400 kids, so if Rocktown had 1000 then HHS would only have about 400 left. I think it'll be closer to 700-800 each but I have no clue. Also guessing they will both be Class 3 schools.'You Can See It:' Harrisonburg's New Rocktown High School Building Shapes Up
When constructing a new school, one day it can look like a bunch of beams and concrete, and then the next you can see what it will ultimately look like.www.dnronline.com
Rocktown's mascot will be the Raptors.
I'm pretty much in awe of how much Harrisonburg has grown since I lived there!
Just the idea of TWO high schools there just blows my mind...
Just the idea of TWO high schools there just blows my mind...
Yes. They've got trailers set up and everything to accommodate. It used to be worse, pretty sure they were over 1800 as of the 2018 alignment. Built to hold only 1200 I belive.
Rock this town by the stray cats could be their fight song.
The VHSL ADM numbers are just for grades 9-11 now. The VDOE enrollment number for Harrisonburg last September was 1,953.
Super glad you cleared this up for me. Is there a place to see full enrollment numbers for all grades for schools?
Not sure if there is a list anywhere, but VDOE has a tool where you can look up enrollment numbers for every year back to 2002-03. Select "Fall Membership Reports" here:
You can search enrollment and other info about any k-12 public school in Virginia on the VDOE School Quality Report tool.
https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/
It's pretty interesting to see the difference in VHSL numbers compared to VDOE numbers. Alexandria City High School is listed as the largest school in the state at 3286 on VHSL but their actual enrollment is 4540 according to VDOE.
Curtis Cherebin is set to be the first Rocktown High School varsity football head coach this fall, confirmed today.Cherebin is a coach with 11 years experience and was most recently the Harrisonburg junior-varsity head coach and HHS varsity assistant.
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according to the latest ADM (3/31/22) Class 4 goes from 1215 - 898.
So looks like both schools could become Class 4.
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Rocktown High School On Its Way To Finalization
Rocktown High School On Its Way To Finalization
The new Rocktown High School is well on its way to being completed, with the main gym having been completed and some halls almost ready for furniture, according to an
I don’t know if this is the discrepancy, but the League switched over to using only 9, 10, and 11th grade levels.
It will be the 2nd high school in Harrisonburg. They have grown to the point that HHS now has over 2000 students. It was named after a section of Harrisonburg.
What was the reasoning behind this switch instead of using the whole school numbers?
Students are most likely to drop out in 12th grade which can skew numbers. Inner City and Remote Rural schools tend to have the highest dropout rates. They could have 250 in a freshman class but by the time that class are seniors, significant dropout rates could leave that same class with 180 graduating. You would think they'd take 10-12 to get more realistic numbers for varsity sports but I was told it was more about predicting growth of schools so they take 9-11 for that.
Have they decided on how things will be split? I have heard rumors that Rock Town would be more for fine and performing arts and HHS would be the more traditional school and the home for the sports. Just curious because I know participation numbers in the past for almost all of HHS sports has been low and did not know how they would look if the population was divided evenly.
Still a lot undecided. The Oct school board meeting will have a lot of discussion on sports, attendance zones and 24-25 enrollments. Biggest question is whether all Seniors will stay at HHS or if they will give Seniors a choice of which school to attend based on their attendance zone. Final votes for all those things will happen at the Nov school board meeting.
Rocktown was originally going to be stem based and HHS arts based as Rocktown will not have an auditorium for theatre performances. However, at the last faculty meeting, Dr. Richards stressed that both schools would be attempting to offer the same curriculum and enrollments would be split as evenly as possible. Hoping to have Varsity sports at both schools starting next year. HHS Varsity football has 26 but JV football has 47 this year, turned away another 8-10 that wanted to come out a couple weeks into school. Soccer, Basketball and track have been fine with numbers and should be fine even after the split. The other sports(Baseball, Softball, Wrestling, Golf, Volleyball) will likely be thin on depth if both schools offer varsity sports.
We're at 2062 students(9-12) at HHS as of last week so a 50/50 split would put both schools at around 1,000 and competing in region 3C or 3B. From a competition standpoint, we'd be in much better shape in Class 3 vs having to go face off with Loudoun County schools in 5D. I'm certainly throwing my name into the hat to be the Head Football Coach at Rocktown when the job is posted. I have a connection to the Principal but anxiously awaiting to hear who the AD will be. Y'all wish a brother luck!
I hope that the city decides to make it as much of an even split as possible. I feel like they'll end up saying Skyline Middle (which is essentially the eastern half of Harrisonburg) goes to Rocktown, and Thomas Harrison Middle (west side) goes to Harrisonburg. Heck, Harrisonburg High and Thomas Harrison are both on the far west tip of the city limits already. Rocktown is about as far south in the city as you can go, so it wouldn't be the most ideal location, but it makes the most sense.
I think, with the right coaching hires and proper investment, both schools could compete well athletically in Class 3. Like One Man said, playing a bunch of Loudoun County Class 5 Schools along with Albemarle, Patrick Henry, and William Fleming (who all have great athletic programs) will be very different than splitting and playing in Region 3C. This has nothing to do with any sort of superiority, 3C has some fantastic athletes and schools (Spotswood and Western Albemarle are two crown jewels of the commonwealth) but it would just be a very different look which I think will help.
I would expect both schools to immediately compete in soccer. Hopefully, the split of the schools will also help the football programs gain some traction. There is athletic talent in Harrisonburg. The basketball program at Rocktown may need some time to get moving but Burgess has coached some fantastic teams at HHS in the past. As an example, I remember in 2020 when HHS boys basketball won the valley district, beat Spotswood twice and had one of the best seasons in the valley then lost in the first round of the playoffs to an also really impressive Fleming team. Obviously splitting would divide up the talent but it would be nice to not play Fleming or PH or Albemarle in the first round of the playoffs anymore.
The physical building of the new high school looks incredible. Haven't been inside but the athletic fields look great, it's on a beautiful hill overlooking 81 and the building is top notch.
Just as a final little tidbit, last year Harrisonburg High School had an enrollment of 1953. 29% white, 11% black, 53% hispanic, 4% biracial, 2% asian. The city is super diverse and I have loved living up here for the past (almost) four years!
You know we are all pulling for you to get the HC job. If not there, then somewhere. LOL, sure doesn’t look like Coach Woody is having any success turning C’ville around. I’m glad you are not mired down in that.
It makes just a little more sense.
It was done tht way from 1970-2003 or so. Don't know why they expanded it.
It never made any sense to count kids that aren't there anymore.
@blackknight_pride you should go ahead and run for city school board, you know the moves!
24-25 Attendance HHS & RHS
The link above provides the slideshow elaborating on the 24-25 attendance at Harrisonburg & Rocktown HS's. School board meeting tonight will announce it officially as well as present Rocktown's logo. In short, Thomas Harrison Middle(West Harrisonburg) will feed Harrisonburg and Skyline Middle(East Hburg) will feed Rocktown. Rising 9-11 graders will go to their districted school while rising Seniors can apply for waiver if they'd prefer to stay at Harrisonburg. Based on current enrollments, if all Seniors go where they are districted, Hburg will have an enrollment of 992 (9-12) and Rocktown 988 (9-12), which will place both schools in Class 3. Rocktown scheduled to have 204 seniors next year, lets say half of them file waivers to stay at Hburg, Rocktown could file waiver with VHSL to be class 2 in 24-25 before moving up to Class 3 for the 25-26 school year. Both schools will have all Varsity Sports starting next fall, 24-25 school year.
Schools were probably reporting numbers that didn't include seniors graduating early (December) thereby fudging the numbers to get a lower classification.
That’s so true. Heard of some graduating as many as 20 seniors in order to stay down. Often wondered how that impacted state funding. Now some, if not most, of those students needed to finish early for various reasons.
Pretty sure they’ll both play in the Valley District.
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They will both certainly be in the Valley district. That would take the district to eight teams.
Harrisonburg (C3)
Rocktown (C2/C3)
Broadway (C3)
Spotswood (C3)
Turner Ashby (C3)
East Rockingham (C3)
William Monroe (C3)
Rockbridge County (C4)
Great stuff @one man. Harrisonburg Public School has a lot of good stuff going on and a lot of resources for their students. Keep striving and being great!
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