A Virginia school district has voted to rename two Virginia schools after historic Confederate leaders four years after they were originally changed.
As USA Today reported, the Shenandoah County School Board in Virginia voted 5-1 in a meeting Thursday to reverse the names of Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School back to Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School. Shenandoah County is a predominantly rural jurisdiction with a population of just over 44,000, and is located about 100 miles west of the nation’s capital.
This vote reverses a hasty decision by the school board in 2020, a time when school systems across the South were removing Confederate names from schools in response to the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement.
Thursday’s vote was brought on by a group called the Coalition for Better Schools. AS WJLA reported, the group wrote in a letter that restoring the names would “demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity, respect for history, and responsiveness to community feedback.”
A previous effort in 2022 to restore the schools’ original names failed in a 3-3 vote. The three who rejected the move have all been replaced on the school board.
The New York Post notes that Board member Gloria Carlineo said during the meeting that those who oppose Confederate names should “stop bringing racism and prejudice into everything.” She argued this “detracts from true cases of racism.”
The sole dissenter, Kyle Gutshall, claimed that while he respects both sides of the debate, he believes that a majority of residents in his district wanted to leave the Mountain View and Honey Run names alone but noted it was a “complex issue.”
“I don’t judge anybody or look down on anybody for the decision they’re making,” he said. “It’s a complex issue.”
WJLA notes that private donations must be provided to implement the school name changes following the board’s approval.
Following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd and the subsequent BLM riots, Virginia and several other states attempted to appease the mob and removed Confederate statues from public spaces.
Then-Democratic Governor Ralph Northam wrote a letter to school board chairs across the state, demanding they change school names and mascots named after Confederate figures and sympathizers. The Shenandoah County School Board caved just three days later, voting to rename Stonewall Jackson High as Mountain View High and Ashby-Lee Elementary as Honey Run Elementary.
The schools were originally named after legendary Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and cavalry commander Turner Ashby.
The post UNCANCELLED: Virginia School Board Votes to Rename Two Schools After Historic Confederate Leaders Four Years After They Were Changed appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
