In the weeks leading up to the start of the new school year, leadership at Skyview High School held “come in unity” events.
The goal, Principal Dave Jagels said, was to generate ideas from students and their families about traditions they may want to adopt. Because it is Fairfax County, Virginia’s first new high school in decades, they’re starting from scratch. The homecoming dance will be its first, and the marching band, chorus and orchestra programs have just a few dozen students.
The chance to create something new is what drove Jagels, entering his 33rd year in education, to leave retirement to lead the new school. Days before the formal ribbon-cutting, scheduled for Thursday, signage was still being installed outside and on interior walls, and furniture was still being arranged.
On Monday, the Herndon campus will welcome about 1,000 ninth and 10th grade students. Virginia’s largest school division paid $150 million to acquire the land and infrastructure at the site of the old King Abdullah Academy. The property was fully vacated last July, and the district just received the necessary permits about six months ago, Jagels said.
“From that time forward, we had to ‘Fairfax-ize’ some things,” Jagels said. “It included some wiring and technology, some updated cameras, those types of things.”
The 34-acre campus includes two cafeterias and an indoor swimming pool, making it the first school in Fairfax County to have one. It will host an Aquatics Academy, so students will be able to earn a water safety instructor’s license, pool operator’s license and lifeguard certificate.
The school board opted to make Skyview a comprehensive high school, but it will offer special programming in technology, robotics and aerospace. Recently approved boundaries for the new school will be used for the 2027-28 school year, and students zoned for Skyview won’t be able to opt to remain at their current high school for the 2028-29 academic year.
Amy Goodyear, a commercial pilot who will be teaching aerospace science and biology, said there are already partnerships with NASA and Virginia Space Grant Consortium, and “we’re going to have some kids maybe flying some experiments with NASA in the coming years. So we’ve really laid the groundwork for some great new ideas and projects.”
Goodyear’s classroom includes an entire lab and a separate, smaller lecture space. There’s a plant grow stand, Goodyear said, microscopes and fresh and saltwater aquariums.
“When you really get them connected into whatever they’re studying, it can be life-changing,” Goodyear said. “I’ve had students in the past that have literally changed their paths because they went through my course and they ended up doing this project or that project, and it really spoke to them, and they’re now going on to do college degrees in that area.”
The school’s classrooms are arranged in 14 hangar pods. One of the hangars is a science classroom, and then there are four other classrooms, enabling students to have classes close to each other and offering teachers the chance to collaborate. The center of each pod includes couches and tables.
Keith Weed, a first-year educator who will be teaching robotics, said when he was in high school, “you had to join a club or do something after school, but they can do it as part of their core curriculum, right here in school.”
“We’re going to do a lot of different software stuff,” Weed said. “So we’re going to focus on CAD. We have a suite of 3D printers and laser engravers. We’re going to focus on fabrication, and we’re also going to work on the engineering design process, solving problems and conquering challenges.”
By the end of the third week of school, Jagels said there will be a pep rally to bring the school community together and get students excited about being there.
And by the end of the year, he said, “If we know kids by name and need and we have a school culture, we have some foundational pieces that are established, we have a staff that wants to come back and stay here. I think are all things that we want to do.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
