Members of the Shenandoah County, Virginia School Board early Friday voted 5-to-1 to rename Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary back to their respective pre-2021 monikers Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby Lee Elementary, with the board’s chair justifying the change by saying the Union were also aggressors and war criminals during the Civil War, WHSV reports.
“People in the Shenandoah Valley say that only the confederates are the ones who did nasty things, or did nasty things to black people. You just stopped reading your history, and you’re not being realistic. War’s hell,” said chair Dennis Barlow. The other pro-Confederate members said their predecessors, who had voted to change the names in the aftermath of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, had not followed the proper rules in doing so. “This was not an innocent mistake by some inexperienced school board. No, this was a carefully choreographed advance of a school board alluding to ignore the people they represented,” said District 2 member Gloria Carlineo said.
Pretty sure that was not a proper use of the word “alluded.” Some Karen who spoke at the public meeting prior to the vote took the same “prodecural” route, saying they were “fed up on people lying about how our schools were named. I think it’s really rich that people lecture me about morality but excuse the actions of the 2020 school board.” It’s not clear what the price tag is for the reversions, but in 2021 district pencil pushers estimated that the first renaming would cost taxpayers $304,284, an assessment that also included changing one of the middle schools’ team mascot’s name and appearance. It’s not clear what the pre-2021 mascot was or if the board will revert it too.