Burke School Set to Celebrate 75th Anniversary

Burke Connection
By Tim Peterson
April 9, 2015

The Burke School is turning 75. The building at the corner of Burke Lake and Lee Chapel Roads, dedicated in 1940, was built to accommodate the student population overflowing older three-room schoolhouse that was first built in 1912. The new school project benefited from the Works Progress Administration under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

Burke native Suzanne “Suzi” Fowler Neal attended Burke School in the 1950s. Her grandparents W.J. Simpson and Nellie D. Simpson deeded four acres for the new Burke School to the Fairfax County School Board for $500 on Nov. 1, 1938. (Fairfax County Circuit Court Historical Records, Liber F-13, Folio 578.)

Fowler Neal will be among those speaking on April 23 at the Burke School in celebration of the institution’s 75th anniversary. She’ll be joined by Burke Historical Society president Jon Vrana as Silas Burke himself (read more).