Princeton school board to discuss renaming of middle school tonight
Walnut Lane Middle School, Princeton Community Middle School, Princeton Public Middle School, Princeton Middle School, and Princeton Unified Middle School. These are the potential names for the middle school in Princeton, which was renamed last year from John Witherspoon Middle School to the Princeton Unified Middle School after more than 1,500 people signed a petition calling for the name change in the summer of 2020.
Administrators for the Princeton Public Schools recommended that the new permanent name for the middle school be “non-person specific.” Officials have also recommended that the middle school highlight historical figures and local Princetonians who had been considered for the honor by naming hallways or building wings after them. They suggested that the school create a permanent historical exhibit with assistance from local historian Shirley Satterfield and the Princeton Historical Society that highlights the contributions of Betsy Stockton and the history of the Witherspoon School. Another recommendation was to place a marker on the school grounds, noting the former name of the John Witherspoon School and the work done to reexamine the name.
Middle School Principal Jason Burr will present the recommendations at the school board’s 7:30 p.m. public meeting tonight, May 25, on Zoom. The board is expected to vote on a final name on June 15.
Middle school and high school students have spent this academic year doing research and making a case for certain local or national figures to be potential candidates for naming. The students recommended both individual names and non-person specific names, and the entire middle school voted on what they would like the new name of the middle school to be. Community forums were held that celebrated student work and highlighted the complicated legacy of John Witherspoon as well as the history of segregation in the Princeton schools and the wider community. After gathering student and community feedback on potential names, Burr made the recommendations to the school board about choosing a more general name and not the name of an individual.
Candidates for naming included Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis, educator Betsey Stockton,sixth-generation historian and civic leader Shirley Satterfield, Albert Einstein, Paul Robeson, and Michelle Obama. Community members were able to vote online for the name of their choice. Residents even went door to door campaigning for their candidate to be selected for the naming honor.
School officials said that in the end, the largest share of students and community members expressed support for the belief that the name shouldn’t honor just one person, because the school’s values are embodied by the students, teachers, and administrators who learn and work there, rather than the achievements of any one person.
Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.
“woke” hits princeton, where the sun rises and sets, according to the pretentious resident blue bloods.
Your exactly right. But, while Princeton is a humorous place, all of this has a serious downside. To spend so much time and effort on the name of the school is as ridiculous as is the changing of the name itself. It would be more consistent with good history education NOT to have changed the name, but to have used it as a case in point for exploring the ethical and psychological underpinnings of American Education. This is too complex a subject to talk about here. I will simply say that 1) my son attended John Witherspoon school many years ago; it was a terrible place. If it’s anything like it used to be, instead of worrying about John Witherspoon, they should be about the quality of what goes on in his name inside it, especially the mental well being of the students. Now, in all fairness, I can’t judge the worth of a school (whose principal told me thirty years ago, when I was trying to get some answers out of him about what was becoming such a disaster for my son that I had to take him out and put him in the Quaker School, that maybe I should reconsider where I lived because not everyone was suited to “the Princeton experience.” The arrogance of some of these “educators,” with whom I have dealt most of my life, is staggering.) I haven’t been inside of that school in twenty years, but to come to the point, this whole thing is the product of a system that has more chiefs than Indians (yes, Indians). There is too much fooling around with this or that educational fad by people have degrees in telling other people with similar degrees how to do certain things that a good teacher knows by intuition. The mediocrities, in short, drive out the good teachers, who become buried under a mountain of high-fallutin persiflage. Since they’re so hot to change things, while they are changing names to cater to the sensibilities of particular interests, why not make a study of all the schools and see if the students—the consumers of all this—are happy. Of course, that’s doomed to failure because most schools are prisons and the inmates are afraid to express their true feelings. 2) Set your mind at rest. I’m writing a book about the forty years of ignorance and abuse I have suffered here in this, the best of all possible worlds.
Your exactly right. But, while Princeton is a humorous place, all of this has a serious downside. To spend so much time and effort on the name of the school is as ridiculous as is the changing of the name itself. It would be more consistent with good history education NOT to have changed the name, but to have used it as a case in point for exploring the ethical and psychological underpinnings of American Education. This is too complex a subject to talk about here. I will simply say that 1) my son attended John Witherspoon school many years ago; it was a terrible place. If it’s anything like it used to be, instead of worrying about John Witherspoon, they should be about the quality of what goes on in his name inside it, especially the mental well being of the students. Now, in all fairness, I can’t judge the worth of a school (whose principal told me thirty years ago, when I was trying to get some answers out of him about what was becoming such a disaster for my son that I had to take him out and put him in the Quaker School, that maybe I should reconsider where I lived because not everyone was suited to “the Princeton experience.” The arrogance of some of these “educators,” with whom I have dealt most of my life, is staggering.) I haven’t been inside of that school in twenty years, but to come to the point, this whole thing is the product of a system that has more chiefs than Indians (yes, Indians). There is too much fooling around with this or that educational fad by people have degrees in telling other people with similar degrees how to do certain things that a good teacher knows by intuition. The mediocrities, in short, drive out the good teachers, who become buried under a mountain of highfalutin persiflage. Since they’re so hot to change things, while they are changing names to cater to the sensibilities of particular interests, why not make a study of all the schools and see if the students—the consumers of all this—are happy. Of course, that’s doomed to failure because most schools are prisons and the inmates are afraid to express their true feelings. 2) Set your mind at rest. I’m writing a book about the forty years of ignorance and abuse I have suffered here in this, the best of all possible worlds.
Your exactly right. But, while Princeton is a humorous place, all of this has a serious downside. To spend so much time and effort on the name of the school is as ridiculous as is the changing of the name itself. It would be more consistent with good history education NOT to have changed the name, but to have used it as a case in point for exploring the ethical and psychological underpinnings of American Education. This is too complex a subject to talk about here. I will simply say that 1) my son attended John Witherspoon school many years ago; it was a terrible place. If it’s anything like it used to be, instead of worrying about John Witherspoon, they should be about the quality of what goes on in his name inside it, especially the mental well being of the students. Now, in all fairness, I can’t judge the worth of a school (whose principal told me thirty years ago, when I was trying to get some answers out of him about what was becoming such a disaster for my son that I had to take him out and put him in the Quaker School, that maybe I should reconsider where I lived because not everyone was suited to “the Princeton experience.” The arrogance of some of these “educators,” with whom I have dealt most of my life, is staggering.) I haven’t been inside of that school in twenty years, but to come to the point, this whole thing is the product of a system that has more chiefs than Indians (yes, Indians). There is too much fooling around with this or that educational fad by people have degrees in telling other people with similar degrees how to do certain things that a good teacher knows by intuition. The mediocrities, in short, drive out the good teachers, who become buried under a mountain of highfalutin persiflage. Since they’re so hot to change things, while they are changing names to cater to the sensibilities of particular interests, why not make a study of all the schools and see if the students—the consumers of all this—are happy. Of course, that’s doomed to failure because most schools are prisons and the inmates are afraid to express their true feelings. 2) Set your mind at rest. I’m writing a book about the forty years of ignorance and abuse I have suffered here in this, the best of all possible worlds.
NB. If a news source is going to bill itself as of the people, then in declining to print a statement such as mine about the comment of a “neighbor” is at least deserving of a response to its author’s query about why it is not being used. Otherwise. All the pretty words about “our mission” and all that kid hypocrisy dressed up in its Sunday best.
“Woke?” Woke means being aware, alert, cognizant and knowledgeable of US history, warts and all, not just the good parts. If you are white, I guess slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, third class citizenship and voter suppression are no big deal. Stop harping on the past, the un-woke folks say and yet they do want to prattle on about what a great guy a slave-holding founding father was while blithely ignoring the slavery part. Eons ago I went through the the Princeton school system, K-12 and overall it was a great experience with maybe a few mild bumps. I went to the Witherspoon Middle School which was on Quarry Street and for part of my years at WMS, Einstein was still ambulatory in Princeton. I’ll never forget when we were at recess in the area behind the school, when one of the kids came rushing up to me and declared that Einstein had just died.
Mr. Waxwood was the principal at WMS, he was a very decent, benign and encouraging presence at the school. Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Stecchini were two outstanding teachers that I do recall from my years at the middle school, grades 6-8.
You’re correct that the school board likes to keep the public distracted by focusing on less important issues like changing a school’s name. There are some real, systemic problems in the school district but no one wants to address them. It’s much easier for the leaders in the district to compliment themselves on the great job they are doing rather than to address some very damaging situations in the schools. Anyone with day-to-day knowledge of our local schools knows that there is extreme favoritism at work. If you are friends with a principal or another important person, good things will happen for your children. If you’re not in the in-group or a school booster, your children may suffer.