Houston ISD: Plan approved to rename four schools with Confederate titles

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Four schools within the Houston Independent School District will be renamed and four others removed from the discussion after approval Thursday night.

Just after 7pm, trustees approved a plan to begin the process of renaming four schools with Confederate titles. Those schools include Henry Grady Middle School, Richard Dowling Middle School, Lee High School and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson Middle School.

Four other schools with ties to the Confederacy were removed from the list: Albert Sidney Johnston Middle School, Sidney Lanier Middle School, Jefferson Davis High School and John Reagan High School.

With the name-changing measure, each campus will be required to form a school-naming committee made up of diverse staff, students and parents.

Linda Scurlock has been fighting to change the name of Dowling Middle for months.

"I think about Nazi Germany, and nothing in Germany is named after Hitler, you know he lost too," Scurlock said. "That's my feeling about that. We should think about a united country."

Howard Moon represents the other side of the debate. He graduated from Reagan High School in 1951 and wants the school to keep its name.

"It's ridiculous. If there was a reason, a justifiable reason, there is none, it's just pure - what do they call it - political correctness," Moon said. "And a lot of people like myself are getting kind of tired of political correctness."

Moon said his alumni association donates thousands of dollars in scholarships to students at Reagan.

"We're so fearful that if they change the name, a lot of those future contributions is not going to come to Reagan," Moon said. "It's going to go to other schools."

Both Scurlock and Moon will speak their minds at the 5pm meeting, hoping board members will take note.