Prince William School Board to Rewrite Naming Regulation

Posted

Photo by Ashleigh Henegar Photo by Ashleigh Henegar

Prince William School Board members are considering a policy change to change how schools are named or renamed.

The agenda item is a response to the renaming of Godwin Middle School. There was no regulation to guide the board through that process as  regulation 854-1 does not mention anything about renaming schools.

It does dictates how to name a new school or facility, saying community committees must be formed. Those committees present their recommendations to the school board, and the school board then names the schools by majority vote.

Wednesday, Gainesville school board member Alyson Satterwhite asked the board to extend the regulation to include the renaming existing schools and facilities.

“I felt like we needed to put something into policy, so if a renaming came up again, we would have a policy to follow.”

School Board members all agreed with Satterwhite that the community should be involve in any future school renamings, but some went a step further, suggesting other changes to the regulation as well.

Loree Williams (Woodbridge) said that she was first going to propose that schools are no longer named for people at all, but changed her mind after talking with citizens. Instead, she suggested schools only be named after deceased individuals who were educators in some capacity.

Chairman Ryan Sawyers said it is a little too restrictive to say they will not name schools after any person as even places such as Prince William are named after people as well. He said that it is more reasonable to only name schools after deceased individuals.

Willie Deutsch (Coles) said he would not vote to name a school after any living person.

However, Lillie Jessie (Occoquan) disagreed with Williams. She said she helped name a school after Fanny Fitzgerald while Ms. Fitzgerald was still alive. Fitzgerald, who suffered from Alzheimers near the end of her life, lost most of her memory, but she still remembered the honor of the school naming.

In fact, she told Ms. Jessie, “Do you know they named a school after me?”

Jessie said it is a good thing to recognize our heroes.

“I think it’s important that we recognize people and that we have heroes. And, I don’t want to be Public School no. 15, " she said although she recognized that some people like for schools to be named after places.

Jessie also said that she felt it was harsh for Kyle Wilson’s mother to have to fight for a school to be named after her deceased son. She said she would like for the Board of County Supervisors to have something automatic, such as monuments built for fallen police officers and firefighters, but that is not up to her.

Justin Wilk (Potomac) said the School Board should rely on the communities, and not be in the business of naming schools.

However, Gil Trenum of Brentsville said they are in the business of naming schools. He said when it came time to name Patriot High School, he went with the committee's third choice because he felt it was most appropriate.

He said the first choice, Ridge View, did not really describe the geography surrounding the school. The second choice, Ronald Reagan, was perhaps divisive, so he recommended the third choice, Patriot.

He said the school board should decide, and take the heat for the decision too.

Wilk also asked that communities take part in choosing colors and mascots.

Superintendent, Dr. Steven Walts, told him that it is difficult to involve the community when principals are usually not chosen when the schools are built and those decisions need to be made.

No vote was taken as the item was just up for discussion.

alyson-satterwhite, county-schools, featured, lillie-jessie, meeting, policy, prince-william, pwcs, regulation, school-board, school-renaming