About The Academies Online
The Academies Online is the official digital newspaper of the Academies of Loudoun. We not only seek to provide readers a peek into what is happening in our school, but also to provide an understanding of what interests, inspires, and motivates us. The members of Newspaper Club comprise our staff and we dedicate long hours outside of class to produce quality work. Be sure to check out the different categories to see the variety of content offered.
The categories are defined as
Features, articles about what’s happening here at the Academies of Loudoun;
Trending, articles about what’s happening in the world at large and in the STEM community;
Snapshot, photographs of events and experiences at the Academies of Loudoun;
Spotlight, pieces about the opinions, experiences, and accomplishments of students, teachers, and other faculty;
Reviews, reviews about books, movies, restaurants, apps, and other media;
Lit Hub, poems, short stories, illustrations, and other forms of fictional and creative literature;
and The Raptor Report, Dr. Priddy’s official monthly newsletter.
About the Academies of Loudoun
The Academies of Loudoun is not a traditional public high school. This is its fourth year of operation as a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and Career Technology Education (CTE) magnet high school in Leesburg, Virginia. The Academies of Loudoun encompasses three different programs: the Academy of Engineering and Technology (AET), the Academy of Science (AOS), and the Monroe Advanced Technical Academy (MATA), a Virginia Governor’s Career and Technical STEM academy.
Within the MATA program are 26 diverse pathways, like the Administration of Justice Pathway, the Auto Collision Repair Technology Pathway, the Building Construction Pathway, the Culinary Arts Pathway, the Veterinary Science Pathway, the Television Production and Moviemaking Pathway, the Biomedical Technology Pathway, the Cosmetology Pathway, the Cybersecurity Pathway, and the Graphic Communications Pathway.
The purpose of merging these three intricate academy programs under one roof is to build a thriving school community and to better capitalize on the synergies within the different programs and pathways. The Academies of Loudoun believes in the importance of providing students the opportunity to work together to take ideas from a simple concept to idea fruition.
The mission of the Academies of Loudoun is to empower students to explore, research, collaborate, innovate, and make meaningful contributions to the world in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The very building for the school was designed to support this mission, providing students with formal learning areas, such as individual classrooms and laboratories, but also informal ones, such as colored commons areas. There is a state-of-the-art makerspace lab and a research library designed to not only support the research efforts of our students, but to serve as a learning space as well.
The Academies of Loudoun is intent on bringing together more students in more subject areas, and will continue to champion the concept of “intentional collisions” to promote collaboration and a cohesive school environment.
About Outside Submissions
This year, we will not be accepting submissions from students outside of Newspaper Club, aside from our annual open-entry contests. Keep an eye out for our next one!
About Joining Our Staff
To join our staff, please request to join our Schoology group using the code NXG7-QG36-SZFMD. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at @academiesonline!