Nestled inside Stonewall Jackson High School in southern Shenandoah County, is Massanutten Regional Governor’s School (MRGS) where, during the 2024-2025 academic year, 81 juniors and seniors from 11 high schools in Shenandoah, Page and Rockingham counties, as well as Harrisonburg, spent half of their school days taking accelerated classes and conducting their own research.
Gov. Linwood Holton set up the Governor’s School Program in 1973, beginning with summer residential programs, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website. That has expanded to include summer regional governor’s schools and 19 academic-year governor’s schools spread around Virginia.
Susan Fream has served as director at MRGS for the past 17 years. MRGS offers dual-enrolled classes, while other governor’s schools might offer Advanced Placement classes.
“It’s really to give them some academic challenge going into college and to earn college credits prior to getting into a four-year school,” said Fream.
Students attend MRGS every day from 7:30-10:30 a.m. Fridays are dedicated to independent research classes.
“The research class is an opportunity for students to pursue a passion of theirs,” said Fream, saying one student was using a 3-D printer, and one was writing a cooking blog, while others were working on electric vehicles.
At MRGS, students take English, math, agro-ecology and environmental science (geology) classes. Each class earns dual-enrollment credits, with the exception of their research class. Fream said some of the students take additional dual-enrollment classes at their home high schools.
“Probably about half of our kids are going to get the uniform certificate of general studies,” said Fream. “It’s that opportunity to get a jump start on taking the college-level classes. I feel governor’s school and dual-enrollment classes in general are that bridge between high school and a four-year college.”
She elaborated that MRGS students are getting the extra academic challenge while in a high school setting that offers more support and opportunities for success, and also gaining confidence in their ability to complete college courses.
According to Fream, most of the students go on to Virginia four-years, such as the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and James Madison University. Most years, there is a student from the governor’s school who goes on to an Ivy League school. This year, two students are going to the University of Chicago with students also heading to Georgetown University, Stanford University, Northwestern University and the University of Southern California.
Attending the governor’s school shows colleges that a student can handle rigor, said Fream.
“That’s what colleges are looking for,” she said. “They want to know you’re challenging yourself with high-level classes.”
Addison Bailey-Hughes, who just graduated from Stonewall Jackson, said she found regular high school classes weren’t enough of a challenge, so she decided to apply to MRGS.
“I saw other people do it, upperclassmen, that inspired me,” said her classmate Laurel Webb, who recently graduated from Luray High School and is headed to James Madison University to study biology on her path to becoming a dentist. “It really just prepared me. I feel like I’m really ready to take on my course load at college. The opportunity to do research is really awesome. I got to do something related to dentistry.”
Her project involved using a resin printer to print toothbrushes that had grips to help with dexterity in children and older adults.
2025 Central High School graduate Molly Walsh said she liked the integrated curriculum, having her classes interwoven. This demonstrates how their classes relate to real-world applications, said Fream.
“A lot of times, people don’t necessarily think of the connections that can exist between math and English,” she explained. “They’re using the same type of vocabulary in multiple classes.”
Fream said much of the students’ work involved hands-on projects, rather than frequent testing.
“That, we feel, is more representative of what you do in the real world,” she said.
Bailey-Hughes, who is attending the University of Virginia to study pre-medicine, said, “Every project we do ends up feeling like something really big and polished and put together.”
Cayden Polk, a Strasburg High School graduate, said he was looking to have more hands-on learning rather than 90-minute lectures.
The governor’s school also gives students from different high schools the chance to work together.
At the beginning of their senior year, there was a unit on problem solving and leadership skills and learning to work with people with different skillsets, said Walsh, who will go to James Madison University to study environmental science.
“I’ve just gotten better at working with people,” she said.
Added Polk, who plans to study environmental policy and planning at Virginia Tech, “I think my favorite thing was being able to go to school with a bunch of new people. It just made us stronger for when we go to college and we have to make friends again.”
Laurel Ridge Community College was known as Lord Fairfax Community College until June 2022. For consistency purposes, the college will be referenced as Laurel Ridge going forward.