Broward to review its school names

School board will examine if some are possibly racist

The Broward School Board is mulling whether to change the names of schools that could be viewed as racist, including five named after the city of Plantation.

The discussion, scheduled for a workshop at 10 a.m. Tuesday, follows an online petition to change the name of Plantation itself. The city’s name is derived from the Everglades Plantation Co., which owned some of the fruit and rice fields where the central Broward city is situated. But for many, it also conjures up images of slave plantations.

The school names could change regardless of whether the name of the city does, officials say.

Five district schools contain the city’s name, Plantation High, South Plantation High, Plantation Middle, Plantation Elementary and Plantation Park Elementary.

School Board member Rosalind Osgood, who requested the discussion, said that while Plantation is the focus, she’s open to reviewing any school names that have “any racial undertones or any type of connotation that causes hurt for a group of people.”

That could include a discussion on whether to change schools’ names

with Broward in them. The county was named after Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, the state’s governor in the early 1900s. He was best known for draining the Everglades, but Osgood described him as ‘the racist governor” due to his segregationist views. A statue of Broward was removed from the county courthouse in 2017.

Efforts to change the name of the city of Plantation have gained steam in the wake of protests against racial injustice following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. More than 10,000 people have signed online petitions. The city hasn’t taken any action or held public discussions about a potential name change, but Osgood said the school district doesn’t have to wait.

“We have to lead by example,” she said. “We can’t march and protest and say we publicly oppose racial injustice and not address policies” that allow racially offensive school names to exist, she said.

School Board Chairwoman Donna Korn agreed that the school district’s action can be separate from anything the city of Plantation does.

“Every city doesn’t necessarily have a school named after it,” she said. “Regardless of what the city does, we can determine what our community is looking for when it comes to naming schools.”

Plantation Mayor Lynn Stoner said the issue of changing the city name was brought up in a recent online town hall, but she has received no formal petition to change the name. A name change would need to go before voters in a referendum, and the earliest that could happen would be 2022, she said. Stoner said she’s received numerous emails on the subject, and they’re running 10 to 1 against changing the city’s name, saying it was merely named for a company, not a slave plantation.

“People see it as a community. They don’t even remotely have that suggestion that it means something different,” she said.

The city was formed in 1953, “well after that time” of the old Confederacy, she said.

“But whoever submits a proposal, we’ll be happy to review it and submit to the council for open discussion with the public,” she said.

As for changing school names, “no one at the school district has called me or expressed their concern or asked what I think,” Stoner said.

Osgood and School Board member Laurie Rich Levinson both have districts that include Plantation schools. Levinson couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. The city is also represented by two atlarge board members, Korn and Robin Bartleman.

“I think it something that merits discussion,” Bartleman said. “We need to have a conversation with the community and stakeholders.”

The school district has over 230 schools, and many were named after politicians, developers, judges and others who have may have racial views that might be problematic by today’s standards, said historian Derek Davis, the retired curator for the district’s Old Dillard Museum, which focuses on African American history.

But he said the district should look at the overall contributions of individuals to determine if the good outweighs the bad.

“Most people have skeletons in their closets,” he said. “We need to rethink the way we’re teaching and telling the truth that people may have done great things but may also have skeletons. We shouldn’t just be getting rid of everyone.”

Osgood said the district should start with names that are overtly problematic, rather than schools named after people that few have heard of.

“If you don’t know the person, you may not realize he was racist,” she said. “But Plantation? There’s no way you wouldn’t know.”