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Duval Superintendent Recommends Changing 6 School Names, Keeping 3

SKY LEBRON / WJCT NEWS

Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Diana Greene is recommending the school board change the names of six public schools.

Greene’s recommendations are in line with how school communities voted. She recommends that six schools named for Confederate generals will be changed: 

  • Joseph Finegan Elementary would become Anchor Academy
  • Stonewall Jackson Elementary would become Hidden Oaks Elementary School 
  • J.E.B. Stuart Middle would become Westside Middle School
  • Kirby-Smith MIddle would become Springfield Middle School
  • Jefferson Davis Middle would become Charger Academy
  • Robert E. Lee High would become Riverside High School 

Green recommends three other schools, two named for the French colonizer Jean Ribault and one for President Andrew Jackson, famous for forcibly removing 50,000 Native Americans from their land, will remain the same. That is in line with how the Andrew Jackson High School and Jean Ribault middle and high school communities voted. 

The recommendations come after months of community meetings and a formal voting process, which some have called unnecessarily long and others have commended for its thoroughness.

Greene will discuss the recommendations with the Duval County School Board at their next regular meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, June 1, at 6 p.m. 

Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at@sydneyboles.

Sydney manages community engagement programs like WJCT News' Coronavirus Texting Service. Originally from the mountains of upstate New York, she relocated to Jacksonville from Kentucky, where she reported on Appalachia's coal industry.