Superintendent Recommends 5 Possible Names To Replace Mosby Woods

OAKTON, VA — After the Fairfax County School Board voted earlier in October to change the name of Mosby Woods Elementary School, Superintendent Scott Brabrand presented five possible names.

The name choices include a mix of references to people and a location. They include Katherine Johnson, an American mathematician who worked for NASA and was portrayed in the movie "Hidden Figures"; Five Oaks, the name of the street where the school is located; Mary McBride, a teacher who taught the children of freed slaves in Fairfax County after the Civil War; Barbara Rose Johns, whose strike against substandard conditions at her high school in Prince Edward County became one of five cases reviewed in Brown v. Board of Education; and Mosaic, referring to a cultural mosaic at the core of the school.

The school board has the authority to choose the final name, and it doesn't have to be one of the superintendent's suggested names.

Mosby Woods Elementary references the Mosby Woods neighborhood, which was named after Confederate Col. John S. Mosby. Mosby was a Confederate army cavalry battalion commander known for his raids on Union troops in Northern Virginia. But after the war, he was pardoned by President Ulysses Grant and became a Republican, leading to threats against him from Southerners who felt betrayed. He became friends with President Grant and served as U.S. consul to Hong Kong under his administration.

The renaming process started after Providence District representative Karl Frisch and at-large member Karen Keys-Gamarra proposed in June that renaming consideration for Mosby Woods Elementary follow the conclusion of the Robert E. Lee High School renaming process. In July, the school board voted to rename Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield as John Lewis High School for the 2020-2021 school year.

A one-month public comment period has begun and will include a Nov. 30 community meeting and public hearing on Dec. 2. The school board will vote on a new name for the school on Dec. 3.

Previous public comments by email and at a Oct. 1 community meeting were largely in support of the name change. A few opposed residents argued that Mosby's history was more complex. Over the summer, some of Mosby's own descendants wrote a letter to the board requesting the removal of the family's name "in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the peaceful demonstrations against the continued oppression of people of color going on across the U.S. and Europe."

For more information about the name changing process, visit www.fcps.edu/proposal-rename-mosby-woods.