In 1961, Harry Bonnett and his wife Tillie acquired 10.6 acres of land from the heirs of Robert H. Quander along Quander Road. The Bonnetts sold the property to the Fairfax County School Board on January 3, 1966 (see Fairfax County deed books 2065, Page 69, and 2718, Page 144). Ten days later, the School Board awarded the contract for the construction of an elementary school on the Quander Road property to Burroughs & Preston, Inc.

Quander Road Elementary School was built using a modified version of the plans created two years earlier, by the architecture firm of Pickett & Siess, for Spring Hill Elementary School. Constructed at a cost of $544,800, the school opened in the fall of 1966.

Rising and Falling Enrollment

Quander Road Elementary School opened at a time when enrollment in Fairfax County Public Schools was growing at a rate of about 7,000 new students every year. However, by the mid-1970s, school enrollment had leveled off and then began a steady decline which lasted into the 1980s. By 1975, enrollment at Quander Road Elementary School, which had been built for a capacity of 600 students, had fallen to less than 200.

In January 1975, Jacqueline Benson, the FCPS Area I Administrator, presented a list of proposed changes for Area I to the School Board. She stated that after the defeat of the bond issue in November 1974, Area I staff began studying the programs for students with special needs that were housed at Twain Intermediate School and Rose Hill Elementary School. The special education programs at those schools were housed in portable classroom trailers and the Area I staff wanted to find a more suitable location for the students. Because enrollment at Quander Road Elementary School was in decline and the building was in good condition, she recommended moving the present Quander Road children to Belle View Elementary School and converting Quander Road into a special education center.

The South County Center

In May 1976, the School Board authorized Superintendent S. John Davis to conduct a comprehensive school closing study of Quander Road Elementary School. On January 13, 1977, the School Board approved the removal of Quander Road’s 187 general education students in grades K-6 to Belle View Elementary School, and the 12 children in Quander Road’s Head Start program to Bucknell Elementary School, effective at the beginning of the 1977-78 school year. The Board also approved, effective September 1977, the repurposing of Quander Road as the “South County Center for Emotionally Disturbed Children.”

What’s in a Name?

Quander Road Elementary School was given its name by the Fairfax County School Board on February 24, 1966. The Quander family, who once owned the land where the school was constructed, is one of America’s oldest documented African American families. You can learn more about the Quander family on the website of the current Quander Road School.