Burley Middle School

Burley Middle School is a public middle school in Charlottesville, VA providing schooling for just under 600 students. It has a sleek Jeffersonian/Art-Deco combination design and a history within the Charlottesville community.

Jackson P. Burley High School was a segregated school for African American students in the City of Charlottesville that opened in 1951. The school came about by the School Boards combining the only three black schools in Charlottesville prior (Jefferson High School, Esmont High School, Albemarle Training School) to 1950. It was built upon a 17-acre piece of land that was called Rose Hill Drive which was owned by Jackson P. Burley, a dedicated church worker, and well-known teacher within the Charlottesville community. The J.W. Daniels Construction Company started constructing the building in 1949 and had classes open in September of 1951 with a total of 542 students from grades eight to twelfth. But in June of 1967, Burley was no longer labeled as a black high school, instead, it was known as Jack Jouett Junior Annex which was because they started housing students from Jack Jouett Junior High of the seventh grade due to a lack of space there. In 1974, Burley High School was turned into a middle school that taught grades six to eight with a total of 841 students that year and continues to operate as a middle school today except for 1976-1977 where they only taught seventh and eighth grade. Recently in November last year, the school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The architecture of Burley High School is a mixture of many different styles and designs. Some parts of the building still have remnants from when it was first built decades ago like a few of the white windows and the big chimney behind the school. But renovations from years ago give it the more modern aesthetic such as the more energy-efficient windows that were installed in 1987.

The style and design of the school are sometimes described as a “modern stripped classical style”, but a more appropriate way to describe it is a style known as art deco. Art deco is one of the most influential approaches in architecture, inspiring looks for the designs of buildings. The school was built by the J.W. Daniels Construction Company, a small, relatively unknown, business. The style of the school they built isn’t one single style, it’s a mixture of many different types of techniques as aforementioned above.

The school’s official page says that “During the summer of 1987, a $2.8 million dollar building renovation was initiated.” This was the time when the newer more energy-efficient windows were installed, alongside air conditioning units. “The project continued during the summer of 1988 with the installation of an elevator and a complete remodeling of the administrative, guidance, and annex areas.” This renovation is fairly visible as the building’s style gets less Jeffersonian and more modern with a seemingly new glass and metal canopy over the right entrance, or where the administrative additions were added. More recently, however, in 2002, the building underwent another renovation, this time for $7,000,000 that connected the annex and another two-story addition around the back which became the 7th-grade wing.