School History
Chesterbrook Elementary School’s history begins shortly after the founding of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in 1870. For the first 76 years of its history, the public school system in Fairfax County was segregated by race. School system records indicate that a school for African-American children in our community existed as early as 1882. At that time the Chesterbrook community went by a different name, Lincolnville. The school, called the Lincolnville Colored School and later referred to as the Chesterbrook Colored School, was held in rented buildings, two of which are known to have been Chesterbrook First Baptist Church and the Chesterbrook Odd Fellows Hall. The first known school for white children from the Chesterbrook community, called the Kirby School, was established around 1885. A one-room schoolhouse, the Kirby School was located near the present day intersection of Kirby Road and Powhatan Street. It was replaced in 1906 by a new one-room schoolhouse called the Chesterbrook School which was located near the present day intersection of Linway Terrace and Kirby Road. The one-room Chesterbrook School was replaced in 1926 by the current Chesterbrook Elementary School, but at that time our school had just two classrooms. Chesterbrook Elementary School has seen many renovations and additions since the 1920s. Racial integration came to Chesterbrook in the 1960s, when FCPS desegregated. This tremendous milestone in our history marked the beginning of the ethnically and culturally diverse Chesterbrook Elementary school community we know today.