Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – Friday’s a big night for students at J.E.B. Stuart High School in Fairfax County – homecoming. This could be the last homecoming where the school bears the name of a Confederate General.
Next Thursday the debate over what to re-name J.E.B. Stuart High School will finally be put to rest when the school board votes on a name.
Parents and students voted to take J.E.B. out of the title but leave Stuart.
“They need to pay attention to the constituency here,” Fairfax County resident Denise Patton told WMAL.
She believes that many of the students don’t realize that the school has not been officially re-named Stuart High School, and the spirit wear committee’s selling gear that says Stuart at Friday’s game.
School board members discussed the school’s name at a meeting Monday, but it didn’t seem like there was any consensus.
School board member Karen Keyes-Gamarra said after the tragic events in Charlottesville it’s clear the Confederate General’s entire name needs be be removed from the school, and they need to make a clean break from the past.
“I encourage you to replace the injustice of our past with justice,” school board member Karen Keyes-Gamarra said at Monday’s meeting.
She would like to see the board vote in favor of re-naming the school after Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who is another option on the superintendent’s list of five recommendations for a new name.
Marshall helped desegregate the country’s public schools.
The school board estimates changing the name of the school completely would cost around $800,000, while just getting rid of J.E.B. would cost around $500,000.
School board member Elizabeth Schultz expressed concerns Monday that the school board is voting on a name change before allocating money in the budget for it.
Patton would like to see the school system spend that money on the kids instead of a name change.
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