Responding to a groundswell of community activism, the Alexandria City Public Schools Board will start the discussion about whether to rename the city's public high school, T.C. Williams.
The process will take at least a year, however. A series of work sessions and opportunities for community feedback will start this fall, and Superintendent Gregory Hutchings will present a report to the school board in 2021. What happens after that, and when, is still to be determined.
Organizer Marc Solomon delivered a petition signed by hundreds of residents to school officials in June.
The school was named for Thomas Chambliss Williams, the superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. Alexandria City Public Schools integrated in 1965. Williams was opposed to desegregation in schools.
"I’ve long been embarrassed that my city’s high school honors the name of the man who fought long and hard to keep my black neighbors from attending school with my white neighbors," Solomon said in June.
In an edition of ACPS Express, school officials wrote, "Today, T.C. Williams High School is proud to educate students from 120 different countries, with 121 different languages spoken. Alexandria City Public Schools views our diversity as a strength. Ensuring racial equity is at the heart of the school division’s Strategic Plan: Equity for All 2025. While we still have work to do inside our schools, the school’s name does not align with who we are as a community."
