No More Nathan Bedford Forrest High School

[Cheshire Cat]

Duval County School Superintendent Vitti and the entire school board have voted to "change the name" of the Nathan B. Forrest High School, effective July of 2014.  The students and public will weigh in with suggestions for a new name.  Funding for the costs to change the name will come from the Operational funding of the District.  This years class will be the last to be graduated under the Forrest name.

[sheclown]

Good move Jacksonville

[Tacachale]

Glad to hear it.

[JayBird]

Great to hear, hopefully now they concentrate on actually providing quality education to Jacksonville's future.

[thelakelander]

good riddance....

[Lunican]

It might be a little early to celebrate since we don't know what the new name will be...

[Charles Hunter]

Per DCPS policy, the new name can not be after a person - living or dead.  Leading contenders seem to "Firestone" (after the street it is on) or "Westside".

Then will be the nickname/mascot decision.  Is "Rebels" still appropriate?

[Demosthenes]

Great news. Personally, I have no problem with leaving Rebels as the mascot.

[BridgeTroll]

Per DCPS policy, the new name can not be after a person - living or dead.  Leading contenders seem to "Firestone" (after the street it is on) or "Westside".

Then will be the nickname/mascot decision.  Is "Rebels" still appropriate?

Abolitionists would be cool... Gimmee an A... Gimmee a B...

[thelakelander]

Great news. Personally, I have no problem with leaving Rebels as the mascot.

I'm sure Yoda, Luke, Han, and Princess Leia wouldn't mind either....

[FSBA]

$400,000 to change the name of a school? I really didn't care one way or another about this, but that is absurd.

[Tacachale]

^I think that was the highest total estimate. My understanding is that a lot of that expense will be for things that would need to be purchased over time anyway. For instance, stationary and correspondence, sports and band uniforms, etc. Those are periodic expenses but they add up when they all need to be bought at once. If the district isn't funding it, then the school or its parents have to. Considering that support for the name change came from all over town, not just this one zone, it's fair that the cost should be spread to the whole district.

[copperfiend]

Per DCPS policy, the new name can not be after a person - living or dead.  Leading contenders seem to "Firestone" (after the street it is on) or "Westside".

I didn't realize they had changed that back in 2008. I suppose the change was made to avoid situations like how Forrest got it's name in the first place.

Firestone High School doesn't sound too bad.

[pierre]

The Firestone High School Freebirds

[mtraininjax]

Great to hear, hopefully now they concentrate on actually providing quality education to Jacksonville's future.

+1000 - I hear Vitti is passing around the hat for Public/Private donations since he and the board don't have the money to pay for the name change yet. Typical for Jax Politics, do it, then figure out how to pay for it, or kick the can down the road...