Virginia school board votes to restore Confederate names to two schools

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School board members in Shenandoah County, Virginia, voted early Friday to restore the names of two schools that previously honored Confederate leaders, four years after those names were removed.

The 5-1 vote came after hours of public comments from people speaking on both sides of the issue. Vice President Kyle L. Gutshall was the only dissenting vote.

The board meeting began Thursday night at Peter Muhlenberg High School in Woodstock, Virginia, and ahead of the proceedings, supporters and opponents of the change told CNN they planned to speak during the public comment period.

“I don’t want my children to learn that the Confederacy is something that can be claimed as a community identity. I want them to know that they can look every child in the face and they can say ‘you matter, you belong here, you belong here.’ That’s not what old names do,” Sarah Kohrs, mother of two students who attend district schools, told CNN before the meeting.

In the years since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the names of Confederate leaders, monuments and Confederate symbols have been removed from numerous schools, universities, military installations and even the windows of the Washington National Cathedral.

Almost four years ago, the Shenandoah County School Board made that decision and decided to rename Stonewall Jackson Middle School and Ashby Lee Elementary School. The schools were named after Confederate Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby.

That 2020 measure was part of a resolution condemning racism and affirming the district’s “commitment to an inclusive school environment,” according to school board documents.

The schools have been called Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School as of July 2021, according to board documents.

But the makeup of the school board is different now than during the 2020 decision: All six seats are held by different people.

After a group of residents The Coalition for Better Schools asked the board last month to consider restoring the schools’ original names, members discussed the issue in a work session, heard public comments and scheduled this week’s vote.

At an April 22 business meeting, the six board members criticized how the names were changed in 2020, saying it was done poorly, rushed and lacked public input. Board member Gloria E. Carlineo said at the work session that she also “eroded” trust in the school board.

Carlineo told CNN that his vote would be based on how the names were changed in 2020. A decision that, he said, was made in a matter of days and with Covid-19 restrictions that limited community input.

“So for me, the primary consideration is whether we, as a democratic nation of laws, will choose to ignore a decision made by a government body that took advantage of the COVID tragedy or rectify an unlawful action that has deeply divided our community. I choose the latter,” Carlineo told CNN before Thursday’s meeting.

CNN reached out to the other five board members for comment ahead of Thursday’s meeting.

Jessica Sager, spokeswoman for Shenandoah County Public Schools, said the district has not yet gotten quotes on the estimated cost of a name change. In 2021, the district estimated it would spend more than $304,000 on costs related to changing the names of the two schools and a high school mascot, according to district documents.

Those costs were related to uniforms and equipment for sports teams, resurfacing a gymnasium floor, signage on buildings and scoreboards, among other items, former Shenandoah County Public Schools Superintendent Mark Johnston told members of the board. board during a meeting last year.

The motion says that, if approved, private donations would be used for the restoration of school names and not by “school system or government tax funds, although SCPS will oversee disbursements related to restoration costs.” ” according to the agenda for Thursday’s meeting.

Parents and residents expressed opposition and support for the restoration of school names. In an April 3 letter to the school board, the Coalition for Better Schools said it believed “that reviewing this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority.”

The group told CNN before the vote took place that it “has full confidence in our current school board to listen to the voice of its constituents and follow the wishes of the majority in the county. Unfortunately, the previous school board did not take these things into account. “We believe that ‘We the People’ is an important part of our Constitution and should be respected at all levels of our government.”

Kohrs, the father with children in the district, is among several parents and residents who said before the vote that they opposed restoring names linked to the Confederacy and were frustrated that it was being considered.

“It’s very frustrating to know that here we are, four years after that, and we still have a small portion of the community that just refuses to move forward,” Kohrs told CNN.

He said the focus should be on what students want and need to be successful, such as fixing leaky roofs, a sound system for track meets or having enough college letters with current school names.

“We don’t even have all of our sports equipment yet because of the name change in 2020. We still use old obstacles, sometimes that have the Stonewall name on them,” Kohrs told CNN.

Shenandoah County Public Schools serve more than 5,600 students, and about 75% are white, 18% Hispanic and 3% Black, data from the state education department shows.

CNN’s Paradise Afshar and Jillian Sykes contributed to this report.