The Loudoun County School Board committee voted unanimously last week to proceed with the process of renaming 10 schools named after people, places, or ideas linked in some way to slavery.
The decision comes as School Board Member Deana Griffiths estimates the cost of the renaming project will cost the taxpayers $25million ‘with all said and done.’
Money, she told ABC7, might otherwise have been used to pay teachers, buy school supplies, and fund in-classroom instruction across the northern Virginia county.
The list of schools was established by the Black History Committee of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library after the previously elected School Board began looking into school names and mascots that could be problematic.
A member of the Loudoun County School Board describes why she favors proceeding with the effort to change the names of at least nine schools in the northern Virginia area
A list of the 10 schools the Loudoun County School Board is considering renaming because of their namesakes’ historic affiliation with racial inequity in America
Deana Griffiths asked the recommending committee to postpone sending its views to the full board until cost estimates for the project had come in, but she was shot down.
The group History Matters was hired in 2020 to search for school named after Confederate leaders, any part of the Confederacy, and any American who was involved in any way with the economic system that depended upon slavery, and later on, segregation.
The group initially identified ten schools that they believe may require renaming.
They are: Frances Hazel Reid Elementary School, Mercer Middle School, and Emerick Elementary School, all of which were named for people with direct involvement in the confederate cause, and/or held positions of power during Jim Crow.
John Champe High School was named for a Revolutionary War veteran. The organization is investigating if he had any affiliation with slavery or being an enslaver.
The second batch of schools were named after places affiliated with slavery – most were plantations – they are: Belmont Ridge Middle School, Belmont Station Elementary School, Seldens Landing Elementary School, Sully Elementary School, and Hutchison Farm Elementary School.
In a recent meeting, one Loudoun County School Board member, said she came to the realization that naming a school after a plantation would be similar to naming one after Auschwitz – widely regarded to have been the most brutal of the Nazi concentration camps.
The school board member read from a letter that said: ‘Sully was a plantation … you wouldn’t name a place Auschwitz.’
‘And I was like, that’s really right. We wouldn’t do that,’ said the board member in response.
Deana Griffiths, a member of the Loudoun School Board has some doubts about the renaming project. She estimates that the endeavor could cost taxpayers as much as $25million – money that might otherwise be spent on students, teachers, and in-classroom instruction
Sully Elementary School was named after a plantation that used slaves
Hutchinson Farm Elementary school was named for a family who owned slave, supported secession, and fought for the Confederate Army
Ball’s Bluff Elementary School in Leesburg, Virginia, was named for a battle won by the Confederate Army in 1861
Belmont Station Elementary School, named for a plantation that sold slaves, and was owned by a family who were part of the American Colonization Society
The final school on the list, Ball’s Bluff Elementary, was named after a Civil War battle won by the Confederate Army.
Collectively, the Loudoun County School Board has been working on renaming some of its schools four about four years,
No names have yet been changed, though the mascot at Loudoun County High School was changed from the the Raiders – named for Confederate John Mosby’s cavalry unit – to the Captains.
That change alone cost the division some $1.5million, which the School Board committee was told at its meeting on May 7.
Griffiths is still hoping for answers as to how a multi-million dollar project to change the names of various schools with ‘affect achievement’ of students, or how it will ‘help retain teachers.’
The board’s next meeting is scheduled for this evening – Tuesday, May 28.
