Va. board restores Confederate leaders’ names to two schools

A Virginia school board voted to restore the names of two schools previously named for Confederate leaders Friday just after midnight at a meeting that stretched more than six hours.

The Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 to call the schools Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School, four years after the board — under different members — changed their names to Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School to break ties to Confederate leaders Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby.

Like other districts across Virginia and the South, the county, about 100 miles west of D.C. and just north of Shenandoah National Park, had decided to remove the Confederate leaders’ names during the national reckoning about race sparked by the 2020 killing of George Floyd.

Protests among parents, students and alumni led districts across Virginia to teach students the racist history behind some school names in a state that in 2020 had the second-highest number of schools — 24 — named for men with links to the Confederacy, according to an analysis by Education Week.

The district could be the first that has restored the names of Confederate leaders to schools out of some 60 in the nation that had changed their names since 2020, according to Education Week.

Board member Thomas Streett, who voted to restore the names, said during the meeting that the 2020 decision was a “knee-jerk reaction” that showed a lack of “loyalty” to the community. Shenandoah County is more than 90 percent White and voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2020.

“It was not done right,” Streett said, alleging that the previous board had made the changes in secret and didn’t represent what locals wanted.

But many members of the public who showed up to the packed meeting said they supported the 2020 decision, viewing the renamings as righting historical injustices. They urged the school board, which had turned over during the four years, to reconsider.

Supporters of reinstituting the names said they saw no racism at the schools and blamed splits in the community on the 2020 vote. Some added that those opposing the name changes were damaging the reputations of men who upheld their ideals and values. They said the changes needlessly cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars and centered identity politics over what was best for students and teachers.