Yorktown High School (Arlington County, Virginia)

The school building opened in January 1950 as an elementary school, The Yorktown School, and it served the community as such until it was converted into a high school. It was called Yorktown from its opening. At that time it was a one-story building and only housed the elementary students.

The school opened for the first time for the 1960–61 school year, with only sophomores and juniors.[5] The first graduating class was in 1962. The building was originally an elementary school, which was converted into a high school to relieve crowding at Washington-Liberty High School.

The school was threatened with closure in 1982 due to declining enrollment, but remained open due to community support. To boost the school's population, the attendance boundary between Washington-Liberty and Yorktown in the northeastern portion of the county was redrawn in 1983. Portions of the Donaldson Run, Cherrydale, Woodmont, Dover Crystal, and Old Dominion neighborhoods were transferred into a larger Yorktown district.

In the 1990s its boundaries expanded once again to serve the communities of Rosslyn, Courthouse, Clarendon, Westover, Halls Hill/Highview Park, and portions of Dominion Hills. An entirely new Yorktown facility opened for the 2013–14 school year, after several years of construction. The replacement campus was designed by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects.

Original front entrance of Yorktown High School, prior to 2010 rebuilding

Post-renovation picture, taken from the same perspective as the photo above

Additions have been made, enlarging the school, but leaving many of the older sections still incorporated within the walls, often still being used as classrooms. Yorktown is placed on a small parcel of land. The School Board does not own the adjacent athletic grounds, Greenbrier Park, which belong to Arlington County. Construction and renovation has been completed on Greenbrier Park. Individual softball and baseball fields have been installed along with a new turf field to be used for football, field hockey, soccer, and lacrosse. A rubberized track was added.

First a square, three-floor building was built and connected by a hallway to the old building. Over the next summer a long section of the new building was completed and attached directly to the first phase, and most of the old building was demolished leaving only a small section of science and music classrooms. The newest wing of the new building, the pool, and the gymnasium were then opened over winter break of the next year and the final section of the old building was demolished. As of the 2013–14 school year, the last wing was completed along with the courtyard.

As of the 2015–16 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,947 students and 123.16 classroom teachers (on a full-time equivalent basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 15.81:1. There were 191 students (9.8% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 65 (3.3% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.[1]

The school's demographic breakdown of the 2017–2018 school year was as follows:[9]

The vast majority of the school's students reside in the area of the county commonly called "North Arlington" which is the portion of the county north of Arlington Boulevard (US Route 50). The attendance area covers the high rise neighborhood of Rosslyn, which borders Georgetown, all the way to the more suburban neighborhoods of North Arlington bordering Falls Church and McLean.[10] A small portion of McLean (22101) and a small portion of Falls Church (22046) within Arlington County are under the jurisdiction of the Arlington Public Schools and its students attend Yorktown. Many of the neighborhoods in the Yorktown attendance area are also zoned to Washington-Liberty High School. High school boundary changes between the two schools historically have occurred at least once every decade.

The school mascot is the Patriots.

Virginia State Championships
Year	Sport/Competition	School
2005	AAA Girls Swimming and Diving	Yorktown
2006	AAA Debate	Yorktown
2006	AAA Girls Swimming and Diving	Yorktown
2007	AAA Girls Swimming and Diving	Yorktown
2007	AAA Debate	Yorktown
2008	AAA Debate	Yorktown
2009	Boys rowing	Yorktown
2010	AAA Forensics	Yorktown
2017	6A Girls Soccer	Yorktown
2019	Class 6 Girls Soccer	Yorktown

• David M. Brown c. 1974,[20] U.S. Navy captain trained as an aviator and flight surgeon who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
• David Charlebois, 1980,[21] First Officer of hijacked Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11/2001
• Katie Couric c. 1975,[22] American journalist and author
• Jeannemarie Devolites Davis c. 1974,[23] politician
• Greg Garcia, c. 1988,[24] TV producer
• Eric Schmidt, 1972,[25] Executive Chairman, Google
• Paul Wellstone, 1962,[26] American politician and U.S. Senator
• Rich Lowry, 1986,[27] Editor, National Review
• Tom Dolan, 1993,[28] Olympic gold medalist swimmer
• James K. Baker, 1963,[29] Entrepreneur and inventor who co-founded Dragon Systems and invented the model which is the basis for Apple Inc.'s Siri
• Daniel Blumenthal (pianist), 1970,[30] Internationally renowned soloist, concert musician and chamber artist
• Heather McHugh, 1965,[30] Poet, translator, educator and caregiver-respite provider
• Emily Couric, 1965,[31] Virginia state senator
• Beverly Johnson (climber), 1965,[31] Pioneering rock climber and adventurer who skied across Greenland, windsurfed across the Bering Straits, and was the first person to solo cross the Straits of Magellan in open kayak
• Charles Monroe, 1975,[31] Second African American elected to the Arlington County Board and its first chairman
• M.J. Stewart, 2014, Football Player for the Cleveland Browns[32]
• Paul Laughton, 1963,[33] Author Apple DOS 3.1,[34] Author Atari BASIC,[35] Named to the Virginia Tech Department of Science Hall Of Distinction.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yorktown High School (Virginia).

• Arlington County Public Schools
• Yorktown High School
• The Yorktown Sentry