This weekend, a Duval County high school will be hosting a conversation about volunteerism, bridging disparities and the community roll of a historic African-American school. William M. Raines High School opened in segregated Jacksonville in 1965. Its first principal famously hired the best teachers he could find—recruiting educators with degrees from Columbia. For decades, it […]
When Rodney Jones and Tremain McCreary walked to school on Tuesday morning, the brothers were headed to the same classrooms, to sit next to the same students, in a building with the same façade it had on Monday. But it was not the same school they had gone to the day before. “It’s a relief to me to know the […]
After more than a half century of controversy, Nathan B. Forrest High School in Jacksonville is looking for a new name. In 1959, Forrest High was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest—the Civil War general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. But Monday night, on the recommendation of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, the Duval County […]
More than 72,000 people have signed an online petition to change the name of a Jacksonville high school named after a Civil War general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Florida Times-Union. Duval County schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti told StateImpact Florida earlier this year that he would support […]
Duval County schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti, in a recent interview with StateImpact Florida, said he’d support changing the name of a high school honoring Nathan B. Forrest, a Confederate general and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. “I would support a name change recommendation if brought organically to the board by the community,” […]
Nikolai Vitti knows how dissimilar Florida’s school districts can be — but as the new Superintendent of Duval County Public Schools, he also recognizes common challenges. Vitti arrived in North Florida last November, leaving behind a job as chief academic officer for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. On the surface, Miami-Dade and Duval represent two very […]
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