More than 9,000 name suggestions for Lee, Davis, Lanier high schools were submitted
Krista JohnsonNearly a year after the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to rename three high schools that long carried the names of men who in some way were connected to the Confederacy, a committee will narrow a massive list of suggestions.
Through an online form that was closed last month, contributors sent in about 9,000 new name suggestions for Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Sidney Lanier high schools.
The committee, made up of about a dozen community members and three students, is now working to rid the list of duplicates, research the different options and work with students at the three schools to further narrow the list.
Lanier alumni resist change:As a committee narrows list of potential new high school names
Guidelines for the renaming process include:
- Consider using names that reflect geographic or historical figures of the area
- Consider using names that reflect the community/area which the school serves
- Avoid duplicating names that are already being used for schools in the district
- Consider using the names of historical figures that have made positive contributions to better the lives (through education or otherwise) of citizens in Montgomery County, the state of Alabama or in the United States
- Consider using the name of an organization, corporation or other entity if the overall history and impact of the entity is consistent with MPS values, or if the entity has a definable and significant connection with school history
- Consider using a hyphenated name, so long as each part of the name satisfies one of the other criteria listed.
The schools cannot be renamed after a living person.
The committee's plan is to give one recommendation for each school to the board by July 9. A timeline for when the new names will be implemented has not been established, the district said.
The 2017 Alabama Memorial Preservation Act requires the district to submit a waiver requesting a name change for each school, which will be considered by the Committee on Alabama Monument Protection.
Despite the committee being formed in 2017, a waiver was not created until last year, meaning districts like MPS needed to wait until its creation to move forward.
In the time since, the committee has evaluated just one waiver request — from an Alabama county wanting to remove a Confederate statue — which it denied.
If MPS' waivers are not granted, the district could face a $25,000 fine for each school to move forward with renaming them.
Last year, after the Birmingham mayor agreed to remove a 52-foot Confederate monument in Linn Park, Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a lawsuit against the city, seeking the $25,000 penalty.
Moving Montgomery Forward LLC was established last summer and has raised over $50,000 to support rebranding the schools. Moving Montgomery Forward's secretary, Tabitha Isner, said the group hopes to use the money for items such as new signage, uniforms and letterhead, not fines.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.