Notes on renaming Madison’s Jefferson Middle School amidst our long term, disastrous reading results

Scott Girard

The Madison Metropolitan School District received 42 proposals for names for Thomas Jefferson Middle School on the city’s west side as officials consider a renaming.

Four suggest keeping it as “Thomas Jefferson Middle School” and another would make it simply “Jefferson Middle School,” though the submission makes it clear the author wants it to still be named for the third president of the United States.

Proposals included names with connections to Jefferson. One would name the school after Sally Hemings, one of Jefferson’s slaves and the mother of some of his children, while others suggested Eston Hemings Jefferson, the youngest son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings whose grave is in Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison.

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