Facilities Management

Fairfax County (Va.) board votes to rename Robert E. Lee High School

June 24, 2020

The name of the Confederate general will be removed from the Springfield, Va., school; the board is scheduled next month to select a new name.

The Fairfax County (Va.) School Board has voted unanimously to change the name of Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, Virginia.

WTOP-TV reports that many students have told the board that they felt shame and disgust attending a school named for the Confederate general.

“The name is, in all honesty, an embarrassment to the many students that attend Lee High School, the 80% minority population that goes to that school every day,” says Kimberly Boateng, the student representative for the Fairfax County School Board.

After the vote, the board said it will gather public comments for a month on potential replacement names.

Superintendent Scott Brabrand has suggested six possible replacement names: John Lewis, Barack Obama, Mildred Loving, Cesar Chavez, Legacy and Central Springfield.

The school board is scheduled to vote July 23 on a new name that will go into effect for the 2020-21 school year.

"The Confederate values are ones that do not align with our community,” says Board Vice Chair Tamara Derenak Kaufax, who made the motion calling for a vote to change the name. “I have seen the pain and the hurt that these names have inflicted on friends and colleagues and community members.”

The school board voted in 2017 to remove the name of another Confederate general, J.E.B. Stuart, from a Falls Church school. It now is named Justice High School.