Robinson Secondary School

History

Robinson was named after Medal of Honor recipient James W. Robinson, Jr., the first resident of Virginia to be awarded the medal during the Vietnam War. Sergeant Robinson, age 25, was fatally wounded under heroic circumstances in South Vietnam fifty-one years ago in April 1966, while serving in the infantry in the U.S. Army.

The school opened its doors in September 1971, taking its students from Fairfax, W.T. Woodson, Oakton, and West Springfield high schools. It was the second of Fairfax County's "Secondary Schools," or "superschools," which housed grades 7–12. Robinson's chief rival to the east, Lake Braddock, which opened two years later in 1973, was the third of these schools from this era. The first was Hayfield, near Mount Vernon, which opened in 1968, and the most recent is South County in Lorton, which opened in 2005, taking its students from former Hayfield territory. South County has since reverted to high school status with the opening of South County Middle School near the school's athletic complex.

Demographics

For the 2011–2012 school year, Robinson's grade 9–12 student body was 59.11% White, 17.88% Asian, 13.31% Hispanic, 5.28% Black and 4.42% Other. The grade 7–8 student body was 60.18% White, 14.30% Asian, 12.54% Hispanic, 7.54% Black and 5.44% Other.

LSD scandal

In 1991, Robinson was the center of an LSD trafficking scandal in which a drug ring sold more than 100,000 doses of LSD in the course of two years. The ring was exposed when a 16-year-old Robinson student shot and wounded a Fairfax police officer. In the course of the investigation it was revealed that six Robinson and Lake Braddock graduates were receiving large quantities of the drug through the mail. One of the men who was facing the harshest penalties faked a suicide and fled the area, only to be caught two years later in St. Louis and sentenced to 24 years in prison with no possibility of parole.

Notable alumni