Students who will be graduating from South Lakes High School next week walked familiar halls this morning to provide inspiration to the community’s youth.

In a new tradition, seniors were able to visit their elementary school alma maters and celebrate with the kids there. Schools documented via social media the occasion, which was described as a moving experience for all involved.

Let's Go Seniors, Let's Go! SVES alum and now SLHS graduates. #SLHS #FCPS #community pic.twitter.com/Za7FRZdkGg

— Sunrise Valley Elem (@SunriseValleyES) June 15, 2017

Familiar faces (Fox Mill alumni) are always welcomed back. Congratulations SL seniors! pic.twitter.com/UcvRW7gT4c

— Fox Mill ES (@FoxMillES) June 15, 2017

Congrats @southlakeshs seniors! Thanks for visiting and allowing us to celebrate with you! #onceamustangalwaysamustang pic.twitter.com/NHv0lZOtyD

— Hunters Woods ES (@HuntersWoodsES) June 15, 2017

Lake Anne congratulates our former dolphins on graduating from South Lakes! #SLgradwalk #caringculture pic.twitter.com/wfVzNUhPxW

— Lake Anne Elementary (@LakeAnneEs) June 15, 2017

FEES students celebrate SLHS 2017 graduates as they parade through the halls ! #ourFCPS pic.twitter.com/nk28hJQrLl

— Forest Edge (@ForestEdgeES) June 15, 2017

Sixth graders sang "Circle of Life" (Lion King) as South Lakes seniors walk the hallways of their elementary school. @southlakeshs pic.twitter.com/DoEU4sQZBm

— Floris Elementary (@FlorisSchool) June 15, 2017

“This is the first year for this Graduate Walk but it went so beautifully that we hope to make it a yearly tradition,” said Emily Burrell, spokesperson for South Lakes High School. “It was an emotional experience for the soon-to-be graduates and their elementary teachers. And the elementary students were thrilled to celebrate the graduates. They even made signs in the South Lakes colors. There were tears of joy all around.”

Students who did not attend an elementary school in Reston were allowed to choose which school they visited, Burrell said.

South Lakes High School’s seniors will graduate during a ceremony Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Eagle Bank Arena on the campus of George Mason University.

Photos courtesy South Lakes High School

As the school year comes to a close, activities are in full swing at Terraset Elementary School.

Friday, from 4:30-6:30 p.m., the school will hold its first farmers market.

The event will showcase students’ work throughout the year. On display will be a student-designed storefront garage sale featuring gently used toys, books, clothing, and recycled and repurposed items. The school’s Hydroponics Team will be selling the plants they’ve been cultivating throughout the year and members of the Green Team will sell room sprays, healthful fruit drinks and combined essential oils that they’ve made.

The underground, green school focuses on getting kids outside and learning about their environment. The students created their own business plan to organize the event.

“The event is run by the children, it’s not all the adults. I’m really proud of them,” said Jann Canestra, the outdoor learning coordinator.

Canestra runs the school’s Green Hour, where every child goes outside for an hour each day. She says the kids are enthusiastic about getting outside the classroom.

Principal Lindsay Trout will be on the grill for the event, which is open to both students and community members. The school is located at 11411 Ridge Heights Road.

Photo courtesy Fairfax County Public Schools

Herndon Man Dies in Route 7 Crash — Rush Hone Elmore, 69, died Friday after his vehicle was rear-ended near Leesburg. The impact of the crash forced his car off the roadway, where it overturned. He died at Reston Hospital Center. [Leesburg Police Department]

Units Respond to Kitchen Fire in Reston — Firefighters attacked a blaze Sunday afternoon at a home in the 12300 block of Brown Fox Way. [Fairfax County Fire and Rescue/Twitter]

Plum Campaign Event Set for April 30 — Del. Ken Plum (D-Fairfax) will kick off his campaign for re-election to the state House of Delegates with a fundraiser at The Lake House (11450 Baron Cameron Ave.). Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is scheduled to be in attendance to show his support. [Del. Ken Plum]

Reston Students Profiled in ‘KidsPost’ — Katie Damon’s second-grade class at Terraset Elementary School voted on their favorite author, singer, sport and more for a profile in this weekend’s Washington Post. The kids also reported what they want to be when they grow up and what superpower they’d like to have. [Washington Post]

Bridge Title Claimed by Herndon Woman — Li Yiting was part of the team that won the Machlin Women’s Swiss Teams event at the Spring North American Bridge Championships last month in Kansas City. This is her third championship win. [Fairfax Times]

Magazine Article Makes Case for Paid Parking at RTC — A breakdown of the paid-parking controversy at Reston Town Center that appears in the April issue of Washingtonian argues that “parking is never actually free” and that RTC “was designed so people could get there without a car.” [Washingtonian]

Fifth-Graders Debate School Issues — Students from Terraset and Forest Edge elementary schools recently worked on their speech-writing and public-speaking skills as they squared off in a debate. Topics argued during the event included school uniforms, homework and recycling. [Fairfax County Public Schools]

County Asks Residents to Report Potholes Properly — Sharing a news blast originally written last February, Fairfax County is reminding residents that they can call or use an online reporting tool to let VDOT know where potholes are in the county. [Fairfax County/Twitter]

Technology Services Company Moves to Reston — CDW has moved its D.C.-area headquarters, one of 24 offices nationwide, to Edmund Halley Drive. Among the features of the new space is a technology demonstration lab featuring the latest technologies from the company’s top partners. [CDW]

Fairfax County Republican Delegate Stepping Down — Del. Dave Albo (R-Fairfax), who has served the area in the Virginia House of Delegates since 1994, announced his retirement Wednesday on the House floor. Among his legislative contributions, Albo listed securing transportation funding for Northern Virginia, closing DUI loopholes, allowing marijuana-derived oils to be used to treat epilepsy, boosting punishments for child molesters and writing the language that banned smoking in restaurants. [Richmond.com]

It was a week ago – on the first day of the 2016-17 school year — that a passenger van crashed into a wall of Terraset Elementary School.

The crash damaged the wall outside the school’s new art room. There were no serious injuries.

Fairfax County Police said on Monday that the driver of the van — who was carrying children to afterschool care — may still be charged. No charges have been filed so far, and police have not identified the 55-year-old driver.

Over the weekend, crews worked to replace bricks and make other repairs to the hole in wall.

Last Tuesday was the first day in the fully renovated school after a more than two-year construction project.

Terraset Principal Lindsay Trout said the building suffered no structural damage after the crash.

Photos: Repaired wall damage, top; Van crashing into building on Sept. 6, bottom.

A van carrying children to after-school care crashed into the side of Terraset Elementary School on Tuesday, narrowly missing youngsters leaving the school at dismissal.

The crash occurred about 3:45 p.m. as the school was dismissing students on the first day of the 2016-17 school year.

The commuter van driver apparently lost control of the van or lost braking ability, careening into the brick wall from the school’s bus lane. The van’s nose went through the wall and into the school’s kiln room.

“It sounded like an explosion,” said Terraset parent Peter Crowe, who was at the school to pick up his daughter.

Tuesday was Terraset students’ first day at the completely renovated school. The school, built in 1977, recently finished a multi-year, multimillion renovation project.

The van driver was treated for non-life threatening injuries. The three young children riding in the van were also evaluated by paramedics but appeared uninjured.

Terraset Elementary School’s lower grades moved into their new classrooms this week, more than a year after renovations began at the 37-year-old school.

When the work is complete, the school will have more than 100,000 square feet of new offices, art and music rooms, classrooms and parking areas. The new Terraset will expand from a capacity of 600 students to around 900.

The new library and lower grades wing is done, featuring lots of windows, natural light and — new at this open-concept school — doors for a quieter classrooms.

The lower grades had been housed on the other side of the school while the new wing was built. The upper grades have been having classes in 23 trailers on school grounds since last school year, said school principal Lindsay Trout. The upper grades will move back into the school when renovations are completed in 2016, she said.

Reston’s Sunrise Valley Elementary is also in the midst of an overhaul that should be done next year.

With music blaring, a vehicle bearing treats came rolling through some of the neighborhoods near Terraset Elementary in South Reston on Wednesday night.

But it was not the ice cream man.

It was Terraset staffer Deana Dueno, who is hoping to encourage reading for the students this summer.

Dueno was formerly a classroom teacher at Terraset, where she amassed a large collection of books for her room over the past decade. She is transferring to the library this fall, so the classroom collection needs a new home.

In previous years, the school library was open summer hours for students to come in and read and check out books. But with Terraset in the midst of a huge renovation, that is not possible this year, says Dueno.

“I need to pass these books on and kids may need something else to read,” says Dueno. “And , if they haven’t read a thing yet — maybe this help!

Dueno — in her little blue car while playing Pharrell’s “Happy,” — visited neighborhoods off of South Lakes Drive Wednesday night and reports it was a huge success. She and her helpers will be out again tonight along Ridge Heights Road, and will likely drive around next week too, so listen for the song.

Kids are invited to take a book or trade a book. And donations for more books are being accepted. If you have books your children have outgrown and want to help, put your contact info in the comments below or email [email protected] and we will put you in touch.

Photo courtesy of Deana Dueno

Now that the students are finally off for the summer, the real work can begin at Reston’s Terraset Elementary School.

The school at 11411 Ridge Heights Rd. is undergoing a multimillion renovation. Many classes were moved into temporary classrooms this school year as the interior work began.

Late last week, work began on demolishing the dual pedestrian bridges that lead from the kiss-and-ride area to the school, which is partially built underground.

Terraset, as well as Sunrise Valley Elementary School, will transform from a late-1970s open classroom layout to a more traditional one. The Terraset renovations will increase the school’s capacity by about 300 students.

Also among the changes for Terraset:

• 3,400-square foot administrative addition to the front entrance.
• 7,613-square-foot art and music addition
• 11,100-square-foot media and classroom addition.
• 3,919-square-foot School Age Child Care addition
• 7,521-square-foot west classroom addition
• New kiss-and-ride area
• New parking areas in various locations
• Two asphalt play areas and a soccer field at the rear of the school

Classic Reston is a biweekly feature sponsored by the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce that highlights businesses, places and people with deep roots in Reston.

The sounds of construction equipment are as common as the noise of schoolchildren as Reston’s Terraset Elementary School is in the midst of a major renovation and expansion.

When the work is complete, the school will have more than 100,000 square feet of new offices, art and music rooms, classrooms and parking areas. The new Terraset will expand from a capacity of 600 students to around 900.

Going away will be the dual pedestrian bridges over the courtyard that were part of the innovative design of the school when it was constructed in the 1970s. The school itself will remain mostly built into the landscape, something that earned it national attention when it opened in 1977.

Terraset, translated means “built into the earth,” and coming out of the 1970s energy crisis, the school was touted as the first school on the East Coast to use solar panels as an energy source. In the school’s early years, the solar panels stretched across the entry courtyard.

The Fairfax County School Board designed Terraset as an experiment in moving away from oil dependency at its schools. FCPS applied for a $625,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to pay for the panels, but it was turned down.

The county then found another money source for the project: Fahd bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the former king of Saudi Arabia.

The arrangement earned lots of national attention.

“I remember various times when there would be tour groups walking around the school, peeking into the wall openings,” said Susan Sather, a Reston resident who was a student at Terraset in 1977.

“Usually the groups were reporters, but at least a couple of times it was the Saudis in full length white robes with head coverings [but exposed faces].  I only remember Saudi men. I know the opening was covered by all the DC news channels, and everyone was watching that evening to see ourselves.”

But, alas, the panels were built for Saudi Arabia’s hot climate, not Virginia’s fluctuating temperatures. The energy savings were negated by repair costs and safety issues. Ice that formed on the panels in winter made several fall, and that was a safety hazard for children. The panels were removed in the late 1980s.

However, Terraset’s commitment to the earth remains. While the addition will provide a more traditional classroom structure for the building, the main part will remain underground. Children have always played on the “roof” of the school, which is a grass-covered field. Nearby is the school’s butterfly garden and an outdoor learning area.

Photo: Terraset’s solar panels in the late 1970s/Credit: Reston Historic Trust

The Reston Association pathway on the east side of Terraset Elementary School, 11411 Ridge Heights Rd., will close for construction beginning next month.

The pathway will close in early-to-mid February and will not reopen until March or April of 2015, RA officials said.

The school will be gating the pathway on the west side of the building in the wooded area. The gate will be locked during school hours (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.). Signage will be placed at the first pathway intersection explaining the closures.

Fairfax County Public Schools will install detour signs guiding pathway users around the east-side construction area for after-school hours and on weekends.

No word yet on how the closures will affect the Reston Triathlon and other races, which often use that section of the RA paths.