INTERVIEW — DEAN FLEMING – VP of the Washington Lee Alumni Association – discussed the push for local school name changes and the upcoming school board meeting for Washington-Lee High School.

• The Arlington School Board is scheduled to officially chose the new name for Washington-Lee High School on Thursday, January 10th.
• Washington-Lee HS in Virginia may soon be renamed Washington-Loving. Arlington’s School Board is set to pick a new name for Washington-Lee High School this week, putting an end to the simmering debate over how to best strip Robert E. Lee’s name from the building. The Board voted in June to remove the Confederate general’s name from the school’s moniker, kicking off months of squabbling over potential new names and even a failed lawsuit seeking to block the change. A renaming committee has recommended “Washington-Loving” to honor the Virginia couple who successfully challenged the state’s ban on interracial marriage, while “Washington-Liberty” earned the support of some committee members as a secondary recommendation. Others still supported swapping in one Lee for another, particularly William Lee, George Washington’s enslaved manservant.
• UNDERREPORTED: BACK IN DECEMBER:  School Board Names New Middle School for Dorothy Hamm, Ditches Any Reference to Stratford School. Arlington’s School Board named a new Cherrydale middle school after civil rights activist Dorothy Hamm, opting against including any reference to the historic Stratford School on the new building’s site. The original school was named after Stratford Hall, the childhood plantation home of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, making some uncomfortable with the name’s connection to Lee’s legacy of defending slavery
• JEB STUART HIGH NAME CHANGE SPIRRED A RETIREMENT ON THE SCHOOL BAORD: Sandy Evans announces retirement from school board one day before petition filed to remove her (Fairfax County Times Dec 28, 2018) — Evans’s retirement announcement on Dec. 19 came a day before a group of Fairfax County residents filed a petition with the Fairfax County Circuit Court calling for her removal from the school board. Signed by 1,307 registered voters from Mason District, the petition argues that Evans’s handling of a student-initiated campaign to change the name of Falls Church’s J.E.B. Stuart High School constituted a “neglect of duty, misuse of office, or incompetence in the performance of duties [that had] a material adverse effect upon the conduct of the office,” according to a press release announcing the filing.