Ashburn School Accepts Applications For Lola Jackson Scholarship

ASHBURN, VA — Framers Projects, a nonprofit group created by a group of faculty and parents students at the Loudoun School for Advanced Studies in Ashburn, is accepting applications for The Lola Jackson Scholarship for the 2020-2021 academic year. The scholarship is named after Lola Jackson, a teacher who worked for years at the Historic Ashburn Colored School, located on the new campus of the Loudoun School for Advanced Studies. The school served many of Loudoun County's black students from 1892 to the late 1950s.

The Lola Jackson Scholarship covers tuition for students who cannot afford private education without financial assistance. Students who qualify for the scholarship could get 100 percent of their tuition covered, depending on their family's financial circumstances. As long as the scholarship recipients keep up their grades and performance at the school, the scholarship, which has been offered since 2017, will continue from admission until graduation.

The deadline for applying for the scholarship is March 31. Students and parents interested in the scholarship should complete an application for admission to the Loudoun School for Advanced Studies. When filling out the application, the student should select “Yes” when asked if they are planning to apply for need-based financial aid.

Students interested in the scholarship also must complete the FACTS Grant & Aid Assessment where applicants begin the process of providing information for the financial needs assessment. Scholarship awards will be announced in the spring.

The Loudoun School for Advanced Studies, which has about 50 students, was founded in 2008 by Dr. Deep Sran. It was originally known as Ideal Schools High School but then changed its name to the Loudoun School for the Gifted in 2012 when it added grades sixth through eighth.

At the start of the 2019-2020 school year, when it moved to its new campus next to the Historic Ashburn Colored School, the school changed its name to Loudoun School for Advanced Studies. "[O]ur new name focuses on the work students do at our school. By contrast, the term 'gifted' reflects an older, in some ways discredited, way of thinking about human potential," the school says on its website.

The Loudoun School for Advanced Studies purchased the property where the Historic Ashburn Colored School is located in 2014 with plans to reopen the schoolhouse to the public. The historic school was vandalized in the fall 2016 by teenagers who spray-painting graffiti, including swastikas and the words "white power."

The vandalism made the Loudoun School for Advanced Studies and its students even more determined to restore the school. By fall 2017, the Historic Ashburn Colored School had been repaired and full restored.

On Feb. 29, the last day of 2020's Black History Month, Loudoun County leaders and residents gathered at the Loudoun School for Advanced Studies to learn more about segregated education in Virginia, particularly the history of education at the Historic Ashburn Colored School.

Three members of the Loudoun Board of Supervisors attended the Feb. 29 event, including Chair Phyllis J. Randall who gave opening remarks. Michael R. Turner, Ashburn district supervisor, and Sylvia R. Glass, Broad Run district supervisor, also were present at the event.

Dr. Wendi Manuel Scott, professor of history at George Mason University, gave a keynote address. At the event, Loudoun School for Advanced Studies students sang the song "Stand Up" from the movie "Harrriet," a film starring Cynthia Erivo about famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Following the event, attendees received a tour of the restored Historic Ashburn Colored School.