Mount Vernon High School

Mount Vernon High School is a public high school in the Fairfax County Public Schools system located in Mount Vernon, Virginia. History Originally constructed to take the place of the Lee-Jackson High School, Mount Vernon High school first opened in November 1939. With the opening of the school, Lee-Jackson principal G. Claude Cox moved to Mount Vernon, becoming the school's first principal, and Lee-Jackson became an elementary school. In 1945, Principal Cox resigned to become principal of Wythe High School in Wytheville, Virginia, and Lee-Jackson principal Melvin B. Landes moved to Mount Vernon to begin a nearly thirty-year tenure there. The school's current location was built in 1961 as Walt Whitman Intermediate School. In 1973, Mount Vernon and Whitman swapped facilities, and the former intermediate school was enlarged to serve its new role as a high school. The original Mount Vernon High School continued to operate as the Walt Whitman Intermediate School until 1985, when Whitman was moved to the former Stephen Foster Intermediate School.