Population: 1045 students
Motto: Have a great day in #1 Big Orange Country!
Mascot: Pioneer
Colors: Blue and Orange

Directions

From the Lynchburg Expressway, take 460 West exit (Timberlake Road). Turn left at the first stoplight onto Wards Ferry Road. The entrance to the school is at the first right.

School Hours

7:25 a.m.-2:25 p.m.

School Year

Our school year consists of two semesters; four grading periods of nine weeks each.

Partners in Education

Associated General Contractors of Virginia, Centra Nutrition Services, Craddock Cunningham Architectural, L. E. Litchford Inc., Lynchburg College, Pepsi Bottling Group, Areva, BWX Technologies, James T. Davis, Finishmaster, Rush Lifetime Homes, Rush Lifetime Construction, Rotary Club of Lynchburg, Region 2000 Technology Council, Lynchburg Industrial Development Authority, Lynchburg Office of Economic Development

Accreditation

Heritage High School is accredited by both the Virginia State Department of Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement, a division of AdvancED.

Virginia Department of Education School Quality Profile

School History

In January, 1975, a steering committee, representative of educators, students, parents, and the community at large, was appointed to begin planning a new high school to accommodate approximately 2,000 students. This committee and twenty-three subcommittees worked under the able direction of Dr. Ernest Martin, Special Assistant to the Superintendent, to draw up the initial specifications for the new school. From this planning merged the architects’ design of an ultra-modern structure, beautiful in appearance and functional in use.

The new school had no real identity until the spring of 1976, when a special School Board committee, chaired by Mr. James K. Candler, made the following announcement: “We propose Heritage High School as a fitting name for the city’s newest secondary building. The name shall serve to remind this generation and generations to come that the first responsibility in public education is to see that our democratic way of life is preserved through an informed electorate. This name shall call to mind both the pride in achievements in the past and shall hold forth a challenge for greater progress in the future. It shall provide a continuing reminder to Lynchburg educators and citizens of the obligation which is theirs - to mold the future through the education of the youth - to carry on the heritage of free education first established in the city of Lynchburg in 1871 and in the Colony of Virginia in 1634.”

In April of 2014, members of the Lynchburg City School Board, the Lynchburg City Council, the Heritage High School Task Force, and the Lynchburg community celebrated the official groundbreaking of a new, 21st Century building to serve the students and staff of Heritage. The new 266,000 square-foot building facing Timberlake Road was open and ready on the first day of the 2016-2017 school year.