New Name for JEB Stuart HS - 9/16 Community Vote

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole thing was backwards.
They should have taken suggestions from the community and then the SB should have vetted them. They should have removed the nonsense suggestions and then gone to the community with five options.

Because there was already a Marshall High School, Thurgood Marshall should never have been an option.

Then, they should have had a secret ballot in the school--just the students--to choose the name. But, all names would need to have been acceptable to the SB.

This whole process was a "we know better than you" and it failed. To have a vote on a day when kids were out doing other things was not a good idea.

agree. they used a flawed process with an agenda (i.e. Thurgood Marshall) as the starting point. Garnered a bunch of ridiculous or not practical names and then boxed themselves into a corner with the detritus.

[Anonymous]

I live in the community and have children in the pyramid. I voted for Marshall, Johns, and Mendez in that order and am thrilled with the final name Justice High School. While the community remains divided over the issue (Stuart vs. New Name), everyone that I know who wanted the name change, is embracing the new name. Of course "the keepers" are not happy with the name and wouldn't have been happy with any name except Stuart.

Schultz played this whole thing very well and intentionally tried to make the Democrats look bad. Hopefully, most people see through her tactics. For those of us who have been following this from the beginning and attending school board meetings, we know exactly what she was doing. She would have never have voted or introduced those names if they had the votes. She introduced them because she knew they would fail and make the rest of the school board--who was trying to look for a compromise--look bad.

The kids could not have had a secret vote in the school because the school administration prohibited any formal discussions about the name change at the school. And regardless, high school students should not be solely in charge of picking a name. The day of the vote there were many students voting and because it was only one vote per household it was easy enough for someone else to come and vote if the kids were busy.

Stuart received the most votes but nowhere close to the majority of votes. More than 70% of voters selected another name for their first choice and 63.8% of households did not vote for Stuart at all. The way the vote was set up, it's no surprise that Stuart had more votes than any other name. All the keepers had to do was vote for Stuart while the rest of us had to pick from 72 names. It would have been like Trump against these other 72 people.

This issue has divided the community and has turned friend against friend, but most people I know strongly support the decision. I hope things settle down soon but I am thankful to the school board to have the courage to do this and know that history will be on their side for removing a white supremacist and traitor from the name of one of the most diverse schools in the country.

[Anonymous]

They had to have a name acceptable to the NAACP, even though the school is less than 10% black. It was pure liberal Democrat politics. If the students and community preferred Stuart, too bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would Schultz have still supported Mendez if she'd had enough votes for her motion to pass? Just asking. She's quite good at working the system to make it seem like she's advocating for things she knows won't happen.

100% this! She would have never have introduced those names if she thought they would pass!

[Anonymous]

Is it safe to assume Evans will not run again? I don't know how you drag the community through this debacle for over two years only to impose a new name that was never previously presented as a "concept name," and ask to serve again as a representative. The whole thing could have been decided in an FCDC conference room in a week or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would Schultz have still supported Mendez if she'd had enough votes for her motion to pass? Just asking. She's quite good at working the system to make it seem like she's advocating for things she knows won't happen.

100% this! She would have never have introduced those names if she thought they would pass!

All Schultz needed was for Strauss to vote with Moon, as she often does, and her motion would have carried 7-5.

I understand that the left wing of the School Board doesn't want to own the decision not to rename the school after a local Hispanic-American war hero, but it really is on them to defend what they voted for and what they voted against. Just like it's on Schutlz and the three others to defend why they voted against "Justice."

[Anonymous]

Every school named after a white man or woman was identity politics.

You don't understand the meaning of the term.

[Anonymous]

Over 2000 kids in the school, and only 932 households voted. Chances are many of them don't even have kids at the school.

Shows something about the problems with this whole process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Every school named after a white man or woman was identity politics.

You don't understand the meaning of the term.

If you've yet to realize that a 1958 decision of an all-white school board to name a school after a Confederate general wasn't an act of identity politics, I'm not sure there's much left to be done for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Every school named after a white man or woman was identity politics.

You don't understand the meaning of the term.

If you've yet to realize that a 1958 decision of an all-white school board to name a school after a Confederate general wasn't an act of identity politics, I'm not sure there's much left to be done for you.

+1 Especially since Brown v. Board of Education was front and center of political discourse at the time. When whites do something to honor a white person, it's just normal. When a minority is honored, it's identity politics. Nothing will change that narrative. Maybe the Board wasn't playing identity politics. Maybe they tried to come up with a name that somehow related to Marshall and Johns because combined they had 1,500 votes. But because they are black, trying to come up with a solution that took those votes into consideration is "ignoring the votes and playing identity politics." See how that works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Every school named after a white man or woman was identity politics.

You don't understand the meaning of the term.

If you've yet to realize that a 1958 decision of an all-white school board to name a school after a Confederate general wasn't an act of identity politics, I'm not sure there's much left to be done for you.

It was insensitive--but this business of Massive resistance likely had nothing to do with it. That is people putting their own point of view on what happened then. Stuart was a famous Confederate general who had a campsite at Munson Hill. The SB at that time likely had grandfathers who fought for the Confederacy. So, it was not at all unusual for them to do that. Yes, it was insensitive--but there is no documentation to indicate that was what they were doing. They had reasons to think that geographic names were not a good idea--there is documentation to support that.

This business of attributing evil motives to people who are long dead (the '50's SB members) is ridiculous. And, it continues with some of the comments made on here about other SB members.

Identity politics is choosing a name (or a candidate) based on their race. I don't think that the SB at that time thought they had to pick a white person--they were picking a historical figure. Like it or not, Stuart was a glorified Virginian at that time. You are placing 2017 attitudes on something that happened over fifty years ago. Insensitive? Yes. Spiteful? No. Just because people repeated it over and over from our current SB, does not make it true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They had to have a name acceptable to the NAACP, even though the school is less than 10% black. It was pure liberal Democrat politics. If the students and community preferred Stuart, too bad.

Boo boo. Quit whining, snowflake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Every school named after a white man or woman was identity politics.

You don't understand the meaning of the term.

If you've yet to realize that a 1958 decision of an all-white school board to name a school after a Confederate general wasn't an act of identity politics, I'm not sure there's much left to be done for you.

It was insensitive--but this business of Massive resistance likely had nothing to do with it. That is people putting their own point of view on what happened then. Stuart was a famous Confederate general who had a campsite at Munson Hill. The SB at that time likely had grandfathers who fought for the Confederacy. So, it was not at all unusual for them to do that. Yes, it was insensitive--but there is no documentation to indicate that was what they were doing. They had reasons to think that geographic names were not a good idea--there is documentation to support that.

This business of attributing evil motives to people who are long dead (the '50's SB members) is ridiculous. And, it continues with some of the comments made on here about other SB members.

Identity politics is choosing a name (or a candidate) based on their race. I don't think that the SB at that time thought they had to pick a white person--they were picking a historical figure. Like it or not, Stuart was a glorified Virginian at that time. You are placing 2017 attitudes on something that happened over fifty years ago. Insensitive? Yes. Spiteful? No. Just because people repeated it over and over from our current SB, does not make it true.

Stuart was a marginal figure who spent but a limited amount of time in the area. For the all white school to think was yet another white guy to put on a pedestal was pure identity politics. Good riddance.

[Anonymous]

Stuart was a marginal figure who spent but a limited amount of time in the area. For the all white school to think was yet another white guy to put on a pedestal was pure identity politics. Good riddance.

He was in the history books. And, in the '40's there was an extremely popular movie that glamorized him. He was played by Errol Flynn. (There are lots of inaccuracies in the movie, but it certainly raised the awareness of Jeb Stuart.)

Yes, it was a poor choice, but that doesn't mean it was "identity politics".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They had to have a name acceptable to the NAACP, even though the school is less than 10% black. It was pure liberal Democrat politics. If the students and community preferred Stuart, too bad.

Boo boo. Quit whining, snowflake.

The Raiders are fighting back. This time the students will be heard!

https://www.change.org/p/fairfax-county-school-board-listen-to-the-students-voice-renaming-ofjeb-stuart-high-school