The Loudoun County School Board committee voted unanimously last week to move forward with renaming 10 schools named after people, places or ideas linked in some way to slavery.
The decision comes at a time when school board member Deana Griffiths estimates the cost of the renaming project will cost taxpayers $25 million “all said and done.”
Money, she said ABC7, otherwise, the money could have been used to pay teachers, buy school supplies and fund classroom education in northern Virginia.
The list of schools was created by the Black History Committee of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library after the previously elected school board began looking into school names and mascots that could be problematic.
A member of the Loudoun County School Board is describing why she supports moving forward with the effort to change the names of at least nine schools in northern Virginia.
A list of the ten schools the Loudoun County School Board is considering renaming because of their namesakes’ historical ties to racial inequality in America
Deana Griffiths asked the recommendation committee to delay sending its views to the full board until cost estimates for the project were in, but she was shot down.
The group History Matters was hired in 2020 to search for schools named after Confederate leaders, any part of the Confederacy, and any American who was in any way involved in the economic system that relied on slavery and later segregation .
The group initially identified 10 schools that they believe need renaming.
They are: Frances Hazel Reid Elementary School, Mercer Middle School, and Emerick Elementary School, all of which are named for people who were directly involved in the Confederate cause and/or held positions of power during Jim Crow.
John Champe High School is named after a Revolutionary War veteran. The organization is investigating whether he had any ties to slavery or was a slave trader.
The second set of schools are named after places associated with slavery – most were plantations – they are: Belmont Ridge Middle School, Belmont Station Elementary School, Seldens Landing Elementary School, Sully Elementary School, and Hutchison Farm Elementary School.
At a recent meeting, a member of the Loudoun County School Board said she had come to the realization that naming a school after a plantation would be akin to naming a school after Auschwitz — widely considered the world’s most brutal concentration camp. Nazis.
The school board member read from a letter that said, “Sully was a plantation… you wouldn’t call a place Auschwitz.”
‘And I thought: that’s really right. We wouldn’t do that,” the board member responds.
Loudoun School Board member Deana Griffiths has some reservations about the renaming project. She estimates this could cost taxpayers as much as $25 million — money that would otherwise be spent on students, teachers and classroom education.
Sully Elementary School is named after a plantation that used slaves
Hutchinson Farm Elementary School is named for a family that owned slaves, supported secession, and fought for the Confederate army
Ball’s Bluff Elementary School in Leesburg, Virginia, is named after a battle won by the Confederate army in 1861
Belmont Station Elementary School, named for a plantation that sold slaves, and was owned by a family that was part of the American Colonization Society
The last school on the list, Ball’s Bluff Elementary, is named after a Civil War battle won by the Confederate army.
Collectively, the Loudoun County School Board has been working for about four years to rename some of its schools,
No names have been changed yet, although Loudoun County High School’s mascot has been changed from the Raiders — named after Confederate John Mosby’s cavalry unit — to the Captains.
That change alone cost the division about $1.5 million, as the school board committee was told at its May 7 meeting.
Griffiths is still hoping for answers on how a multi-million dollar project to change the names of several schools “will affect student achievement,” or how it will “help retain teachers.”
The next board meeting is scheduled for tonight, Tuesday, May 28.