John Adams Elementary School celebrated 50 years since it opened by burying a time capsule to be dug up in another 50 years’ time.
Each grade selected an item that they thought represented the school to insert into the box during a music-filled assembly. The time capsule was buried outside the front of the school this week.
The pre-K inserted a photo of themselves with the ethologist Jane Goodall, who is considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, first-grade students inserted a signed fact-fluency cape worn by the class champion who had memorized all their fast facts, while fifth-grade students compiled the hottest songs of the year to insert into the time capsule.
Other grades selected a class book of student inventions, a science beaker with student hand-written scrolls and a signed map of Virginia to add to the box. John Adams Poet Laureate also contributed a copy of his poem “Three Doves Flying”, while Alexandria Symphony Orchestra’s Sympatico program added a T-shirt. The PTA put in copies of the 1969 and 1979 year books.
This was such a fun project. We said we would be celebrating 50 years and we certainly did that in style,” said John Adams Principal Jill Lee.
John Adams opened as a middle school in 1967. The blue and white colors chosen for the school were meant to represent the revolutionary war minutemen. Construction workers found petrified wood on the site during the build. The wood was sent to T.C. Williams where it has remained ever since.
The middle school closed in 1979 and reopened as an elementary school shortly after with just 300 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students. The school was paired with Cora Kelly, which served the younger grade levels. The school shared the building with the Alexandria Library and classes were housed in the upstairs part of the building only. There is still a plaque to the first librarian, Mrs. Main, in the upstairs hallway.
The original mascot for John Adams was Skippy the Kangaroo and the motto was jump and turn. The mascot was changed to the eagle in 1998. The student population exploded in the late 1990s and hit 1,000 for the first time in 2000.