A group of staff, students, parents and other residents will explore renaming James Blair Middle School in Williamsburg.
The Williamsburg-James City County School Board approved the process this week.
“We want this to be a fair process with participants that will feel that they were respected, valued and heard,” said School Board member Kimberly Hundley.
The committee will consist of 12 to 16 people including two board members who will review discussions from WJCC’s 2017 naming process which occurred after the school was renovated. It will also survey community interest in renaming the school and, if the interest is strong, determine how to get suggestions for new names.
The group will present a recommendation to the board as early as May. The board would then vote.
The board will spend the rest of February looking for residents in the Blair attendance zone for the committee. If the board votes to rename the school, a timeline by WJCC administration indicates the school will open with that name in August.
Renaming the school has been a focus of several groups such as the Campaign for Honorable and Inclusive School Names, which requested the change. More than a dozen people spoke for and against the idea ahead of the board’s Tuesday vote.
“James Blair was a Colonial leader who played a role in the history of Virginia, but his legacy is deeply tied to a period where Black and Indigenous people were denied basic human rights in our society,” said Samuel Ray from the York-James City-Williamsburg NAACP education committee. “Our schools should reflect the names that inspire all students, not ones that remind many of a painful past.”
Blair was a powerful Anglican minister in the 17th and 18th centuries. Born in Scotland, he moved to Virginia and served as rector of multiple parishes including James City and was a co-founder and president of William & Mary. He also lent the college its first enslaved laborers and advocated for institutionalizing slavery in Virginia.
Donna Mellis said the board’s time and the division’s dollars were better spent elsewhere.
“Changing the name is expensive and at this time these school children need the money for more important things,” she said.
Renaming the school is estimated to cost more than $92,000 to resurface the gym floor and replace signs. More than $41,000 would pay for new uniforms for the school’s eight athletic teams.
Susan Franz questioned the impact of the school’s name on students.
“A name is just a name,” she said. “On the other hand, school culture can cause feelings of inequality or oppression. I would like to believe that the culture in our schools is welcoming and nondiscriminatory, no matter what the school name is.”
Camille Batts from the Committee for Contextualization of Campus Landmarks and Iconography, a William & Mary undergraduate research group, disagreed.
“Names hold immense power and there are ways to use this power to memorialize figures who represent the values and morals we hope to instill in the community,” she said.
After the vote, several board members shared their appreciation for residents who spoke at the meeting. Board Chair Sarah Ortego said she hopes the committee can create a space for productive conversation for people with different perspectives.
“How we go about having this conversation will determine how far we’ve actually come,” she said. “That will determine who we are as a community in 2025.”
Note: WJCC Schools is a member of HRETA, which owns WHRO’s broadcast license.
