Schools
Renaming Polls Open For T.C. Williams, Maury Elementary
Semifinalist names for the schools have been proposed before the school board chooses the final names in the spring.
ALEXANDRIA, VA — Alexandria City Public Schools has announced semifinalist names for T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Maury Elementary School and opened public surveys for each school.
The Alexandria School Board voted in November to rename the schools, kicking off a second phase to choose the new names. The semifinalist names were chosen after a community engagement process with thousands of entries from students, family staff and the community. The top names were chosen from the polls if they met school board naming policies.
The potential names for T.C. Williams High School are:
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- Arnold J. Thurmond High School
- Petey Jones High School
- Titan Community High School
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg High School
- King Street High School
- Chinquapin High School
- Blois Hundley High School
- Parker-Gray High School
- Alexandria High School
The potential names for Matthew Maury Elementary School are:
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg Elementary School
- Russell Road Elementary School
- Jean Reid Elementary School
- Rosemont Park Elementary School
- Sarah Kemp Brady Elementary School
- Katherine Johnson Elementary School
- John Lewis Elementary School
- Naomi Brooks Elementary School
- Harriet Tubman Elementary School
Residents can take renaming surveys for T.C. Williams and Maury Elementary through 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 19. More information on the name nominations are available on the Identity Project web page.
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The current timeline calls for the top three names for each school to be presented to the school board for final selection on March 4. A public hearing on the name recommendations would follow on March 18, and a final vote would be held on April 8. The new names would be implemented on July 1 after the current academic year.
The name change process started last summer after petitions for each school were submitted to the school board. T.C. Williams High School is named after Thomas Chambliss Williams, the former Alexandria superintendent from the mid-1930s until 1963 who promoted the school division's resistance to desegregation efforts. Matthew Maury Elementary was named for a Confederate commander and the "Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology" for his contributions to charting winds and ocean currents.
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