‘Plantation’ school names won’t change any time soon

Board members express policy support but balk at immediate renaming

Broward School Board members soon may ban school names construed as racist, but that may not mean an automatic change for schools named after the city of Plantation.

Board member Rosalind Osgood, the only Black member on the board, proposed a change to district policy that ensures “none our of facilities are named names that infer any type of racist connotation or negativity or injurious names toward any group of people.”

Osgood said the name Plantation is offensive to Black residents. She compared it to referring to Blacks as the “N word,’ “monkeys,” “animals,” “apes” and “those people.”

While School Board members in general supported a policy change, they were less eager to immediately rename Plantation schools. At a workshop Tuesday, several suggested the School Board create a district-wide task force to review school names. Others said they want to ensure any name changes come directly from the community.

“It’s something that needs to be brought up in school communities, discussed in school communities and decided in school communities,” Board member Laurie Rich Levinson said.

Levinson, who is white, represents the district that includes South Plantation High and Plantation Park Elementary, both of which are majority-white schools. Osgood represents the district that includes the city’s namesake elementary, middle and high schools, all of which are majority Black.

The effort to change school names, as well as a similar push to change the name of the city of Plantation, come in the wake of protests against racial injustice following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The city’s name is derived from the Everglades Plantation Co., which owned some of the fruit and rice fields in what is now the central Broward city. But for many, it also conjures up images of slave plantations.

Plantation resident Aston Bright, Jr., who is Black, spoke against changing the names of schools in his city, saying the name has nothing to do with slavery.

“We have to make changes that are prudent smart measures and not just a knee jerk reaction to the internet mobs that are calling for things to happen, which isn’t always the best way to move forward,” he said.

Plantation Mayor Lynn Stoner told the South Florida Sun Sentinel last week that emails have come in 10 to 1 against changing the city’s name. Any change would have to be decided by voters in a referendum, and the earliest that could happen would be 2022, she said.