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Karina Elwood

The Fairfax County School Board will move forward with changing the name of W.T. Woodson High School, named after Wilbert Tucker Woodson, one of the school district’s early superintendents who opposed school desegregation.

The board voted unanimously Thursday night to move forward with renaming the school, a first step in the process. In coming weeks the board will decide on a new name. A main contender is C.G. Woodson, for Carter G. Woodson, an author, educator and journalist often considered the “father of Black history.”

School board member Megan McLaughlin (Braddock), the main sponsor of the name change, said the Woodson community has talked about renaming the school for years. The effort ramped up after Woodson’s personal papers surfaced during research on the school district’s history of segregation. The documents <a href="https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/history/records/desegregation/writings#1959-woodson" target=_blank>included a memo</a> in which Woodson clearly expressed his personal opposition to desegregation.

“As members of the community read that memo, myself and other board members read the memo, students read the memo, there became a collective conversation that there is no place to have his name remaining on the building,” McLaughlin said.

The board’s decision to rename the school comes as institutions have grappled in recent years with the country’s legacy of slavery and racism. That reckoning has led to the removal of statues honoring Confederate leaders, the renaming of roads and changes to school names across the country.

In 2020, for instance, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-county-renames-robert-e-lee-high-for-late-congressman-john-lewis/2020/07/23/0f0380ac-cd34-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html" target=_blank>Fairfax renamed Robert E. Lee High School</a> to John R. Lewis High School in honor of the late civil rights icon and Georgia congressman, and in 2017 the school board voted to rename <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-school-board-votes-to-change-name-of-jeb-stuart-high-school/2017/07/28/b5c45d44-7323-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html" target=_blank>J.E.B. Stuart</a> High School to Justice High School.

Woodson, the district’s second-longest-serving superintendent, held the position from 1929 to 1961 and led the system as it changed from one that was small and rural into a major suburban district.

According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1983/07/14/wt-woodson-fairfax-schools-ex-chief-dies/586b7f6c-997a-4022-a2ec-44a79ff5fa35/" target=_blank>an obituary in The Washington Post</a>, when Woodson joined the school system, it had fewer than 5,000 students and an annual budget of $321,000. By the time he retired, Fairfax had become one of the largest school systems in Virginia with 93 public schools serving about 60,000 students, and an operating budget of about $20 million a year.

Today, Fairfax has more than 180,000 students and a $3.5 billion budget. Woodson High School serves more than 2,400 students.

When the school opened in 1962, it was named after the superintendent, who had recently retired. At that point, according to his obituary, Woodson had led the school district through the Great Depression and through the early years of integration after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in<i> Brown v. Board of Education</i> declared the “separate but equal” school policy to be unconstitutional.

During his tenure, statewide segregation laws and policies known as “Massive Resistance” effectively barred school districts from complying with the <i>Brown</i> ruling. When Woodson died in 1983, The Post wrote: “On the integration question, Mr. Woodson was a gradualist, urging that black and white children begin going to school together in the first grade and continue together thereafter.”

McLaughlin said that for many years it was difficult to understand Woodson’s personal stance on segregation because as superintendent, she said, many of his actions and decisions were driven by the opinion of the board.

When school leaders came across the 1959 memo, it helped make his stance clear.

“The order to desegregate schools is highly improper and infringes on human rights,” Woodson wrote to a board member. “To force integration of schools is to force social mixing, since attendance in public schools is usually compulsory.”

McLaughlin said it was clear that his name should no longer be honored on the school building, and she hoped this would be an opportunity for the community to come together.

The school district had received more than 1,400 online public comments that were split in support and opposition, according to a presentation at Thursday night’s meeting. A majority of parents said they supported a name change, while a majority of graduates said they did not.

On Tuesday evening, about eight people attended a public forum on the decision to rename the school. Nearly all were in favor.

“I’ve heard people say we didn’t know who he was,” said Vanessa Hall, who has two children at Woodson. “Well, I’m here to say that generations of Black families who were prohibited from attending any high school in Fairfax County knew.”

Todd Cranford, a parent of a Woodson student, said he thought namesakes were important because they signal the values of a community.

“We have an opportunity to show our children and our community that FCPS values all students by renaming the school in a manner consistent with the county’s One Fairfax Policy,” Cranford said. “Superintendent Woodson’s opposition to desegregation is only one aspect of his legacy, but it’s an important one when considering that a school is named for him.”

John Bartelloni, a 1970 graduate of the school, opposed the name change. He said that while he doesn’t agree with Woodson’s stances, removing his name felt like erasure.

“Given his service in World War I and leadership during the consolidation era and post-World War II years, I ask the school board of Fairfax County not to tamper with the legacy of Mr. Woodson,” Bartelloni said.

Marsha Schindel, also a 1970 Woodson graduate, offered a different view.

Perhaps the school system, she said, should stop simply naming schools after people.

University of Florida, BS in journalism 

Karina Elwood is a staff writer at The Washington Post covering Virginia schools and education.

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