{"id":19474,"date":"2013-07-10T15:04:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T19:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=19474"},"modified":"2013-07-10T15:04:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T19:04:34","slug":"duval-county-leaders-open-to-renaming-forrest-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/07\/10\/duval-county-leaders-open-to-renaming-forrest-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Duval County Leaders Open To Renaming Forrest High School"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_19475\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 179px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Nathan Bedford Forrest.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19475\" alt=\"Nathan Bedford Forrest.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest-179x300.jpg\" width=\"179\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest-179x300.jpg 179w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest.jpg 357w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 179px) 100vw, 179px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Wikimedia Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nathan Bedford Forrest.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Duval County schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/07\/01\/superintendent-nikolai-vitti-on-his-first-year-in-jacksonville-race-and-the-challenges-to-florida-schools\/\">in a recent interview with StateImpact Florida<\/a>, said he&#8217;d support changing the name of a high school honoring Nathan B. Forrest, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/roadshow\/fts\/palmsprings_200801A41.html\">Confederate general and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would support a name change recommendation if brought organically to the board by the community,\u201d Vitti said<\/p>\n<p><em>The Florida Times-Union<\/em> reports that community members are also <a href=\"http:\/\/jacksonville.com\/news\/metro\/2013-07-09\/story\/superintendent-would-support-changing-name-forrest-high-school-if\">open &#8212; if unenthusiastic &#8212; <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/jacksonville.com\/news\/metro\/2013-07-09\/story\/superintendent-would-support-changing-name-forrest-high-school-if\">to revisiting an issue<\/a> which has simmered for years. The Duval school board last took up the issue in 2008, voting 5-2 not to rename Nathan B. Forrest High School.<\/p>\n<p>From the story:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>School Board member Connie Hall, whose district represents Forrest, said she will let the public spearhead a school name change and \u201cis ready and available\u201d to help the school\u2019s advisory council.<\/p>\n<p>Changing the school&#8217;s name is a volatile subject, Lee said. And even if the advisory council passed a new name, it could take some time before the board votes, Lee said, because Hall might host community meetings for further comments.<\/p>\n<p>Hall said she hasn\u2019t heard an outcry about changing the school\u2019s name. However, when someone mentions Forrest, there\u2019s always an off-hand comment about changing the name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One potential new name would honor Michael Scott Speicher, a Navy pilot and Forrest graduate who was the first casualty of the Gulf War.<\/p>\n<p>However, the school advisory committee&#8217;s outgoing chairman thinks the money spent to change signs, stationery and other items would be better used on teachers, books or other classroom supplies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Duval County schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti, in a recent interview with StateImpact Florida, said he&#8217;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. \u201cI would support a name change recommendation if brought organically to the board by the community,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":19475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[526,847,848,1052],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19474"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19479,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19474\/revisions\/19479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}