Prince William County School Board stands by decision to rename Godwin Middle School

A fractured Prince William County School Board on April 7 failed to pass a motion that would have rescinded its earlier decision to rename Godwin Middle School in Dale City for Dr. George Hampton.

The vote was three in favor (William Deutsch, Coles; Alyson Satterwhite, Gainesville and Gil Trennum, Brentsville) and five against, (Justin Wilk, Potomac; Lillie Jessie, Occoquan; Loree Williams, Woodbridge; Diane Raulston, Neabsco and Ryan Sawyers, chairman-at-large).

Following some three hours of public comment that ranged from the charge that the Board failed to bring the Godwin community on board before making the change, to Mills Godwin’s role in delaying desegregation of schools in Virginia, Brentsville District Supervisor Gil Trennum moved that the Board amend its March 2 vote to delete language that would rename Godwin, while guaranteeing that a new school would be named for the African-American educator before the end of the 2015-16 school year.

The motion did not seek to change its decision to name the “Ferlazzo” elementary school for deceased firefighter Kyle Wilson, which was part of the original motion.

In proposing the change, Trennum said that the compromise vote came about when the Board was deadlocked 4-4, half the Board voting to name the school for Wilson, while the other half supported naming it for Hampton.

“We were at a 4-4 stalemate,” he said. “We were winging it. We followed neither process nor practice,” thus disenfranchising the Godwin community.

Discussion of the motion was heated, with Coles District representative William Deutsch coming under criticism from several Board members for intervening in an issue that effects a school in the Neabsco District.

Justin Wilk, Potomac District representative, defended the estimated $500,000 cost of making the change by saying “Nobody talks about the cost to African Americans across the Commonwealth who were denied an education by this man.”