Heritage Likely to Move to AAA

By: Dan Sousa

(Nov. 1, 2007) – In anticipation of a move up to AAA status because of increasing enrollment, Heritage High School is exploring memebership in both the Northern and Northwestern regions.

All schools are locked into their VHSL assignments for a two-year cycle that just started this fall, but the Pride, one of the largest AA schools in the state with aproximately 1,700 students currently, will most likely move up from AA to AAA for the two-year cycle starting in 2009-2010.

Currently Loudoun Valley is in the AAA Cedar Run District in the Northwest Region and Stone Bridge is in the AAA Liberty District in the Northern Region. Heritage is in the eight-team Region II Dulles District which includes only Loudoun schools (Heritage, Dominion, Broad Run, Briar Woods, Freedom, Loudoun County, Park View, Potomac Falls)

Both Heritage and Valley will attend a Nov. 7 Northern Region Council to entertain ideas about the schools move into the Northern Region. Valley just left the National District in the Northern Region though the Vikes did not participate as a full regular-season member.

“We want to be somewhere with the same size schools we have,” said Heritage athletic director Ron Petrella who stressed that everything at this point is very speculative as the VHSL won’t officially realign schools until the spring for the next two-year cycle. Everything is done well in advance as it takes so long for schools to work out scheduling issues when moving districts and regions.

Petrella pointed out that the Cedar Run District where Valley plays has an average enrollment of about 2,200 and that the Concorde District in the Northern Region has an average enrollment even higher, near 2,300.

There is already an idea put forth by Robinson High School that would have a 32-team Northern Region include a Concorde District that would be comprised of the three Loudoun schools (Valley, Stone Bridge, Heritage) grouped with Herndon, South Lakes, Westfield, Chantilly and Centreville. While that would make some geographical sense, it would group the smaller Loudoun schools with some of the largest schools in the state.

There will probably be many twists and turns before the issue is decided as several years ago the Norther Region Council rejected Valley’s move into the region only to have the VHSL force the region to accept the Vikes.

Loudoun schools have been off and on in the Northern Region since Potomac Falls opened in 1997 with Potomac Falls, Broad Run and Park View all in the Northern Region for a time until the current wave of building lowered attendance figures to AAe levels with Stone Bridge (2000), Heritage (2002), Dominion (2003), Briar Woods (2005) and Freedom (2005) all opening. Prior to 1997, Loudoun had a stable school population for 20 years with four high schools: Loudoun County, Loudoun Valley, Broad Run and Park View.