History cannot be changed, but that does not hold true with the names of public schools – especially if they carried the name of a Confederate officer.
The St. Louis Public Schools board recently voted to rename Kennard Junior Academy and honor the building with the name of Betty Wheeler Classical Junior Academy.
For decades, the school at 5031 Potomac had carried the name of late Confederate Lt. Samuel Kennard, who became a wealthy St. Louis businessperson with known ties to a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, according to SLPS.
In 2015, parents insisted that that school’s name be changed to better reflect it as a part of a diverse and inclusive neighborhoods and district.
Collaborating with parents and alumni, the district did further research on school names and the development of a districtwide building renaming policy applicable for all schools.
Kennard was temporarily renamed Classical Junior Academy in August 2020.
The late Betty McNeal Wheeler, an education pioneer associated with the founding of Metro High School, had her name submitted as part of a list from a petition started by parents. Pending the Wheeler family’s formal acceptance of this honor, the south St. Louis Magnet school carry the new name.
“The elementary school, one of the bast in the state, now has a name, everyone can be proud of and that sets the tone for more of the positive changes we all to want to see in our world,” said SLPS Superintendent Kelvin Adams.
Alumni of Enright CJA and Metro High School wrote in a nomination letter, “Betty McNeal Wheeler dedicated her life to excellence in education, particularly in the St. Louis Public Schools. After teaching at Gundlach Elementary, the Northside Reading Clinic, and Yeatman Elementary, she started Metro High School.”
“Wheeler led Metro straight into the record books, with test scores that challenge even the most prestigious private schools. Metro is a public school with a proven history of cultivating exceptional students and a culture of inclusion.”
The letter said students and staff were free to call her “Betty,” adding that “she ensured that we all felt like family to her, and to each other.
“We had those difficult, open, and honest, all-school conversations about race, equity, diversity, and inclusion. She treated us with respect and expected us to do the same of our peers and the staff.”
Wheeler died in 2011, and her St. Louis American obituary said she founded Metro “the “school without walls,” in 1972, based on innovative schools that she’d read about in Chicago, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, N.Y.
“The school focused on college-bound juniors and seniors. In addition to its shortage of walls and classrooms, it didn’t have bells announcing class changes, athletic facilities, or many other resources.
Mrs. Wheeler also founded a culture that surrounded the school. There was the “Metro Hug” that she gave students, or Metroites. There was an informality-she asked students to call her by her first name and many teachers followed suit. She also gave students her home phone number.
But she also could be fiercely protective.
In 1995, while trying to keep four “street punks” and three students apart, when one of them reached around her to try to hit a student, she hit the attacker in the face.
“I don’t let anybody treat one of my students wrong,” Mrs. Wheeler said about the incident in a 1996 profile.
In that article, Mrs. Wheeler said, “I’ve always told everyone that Metro is my life.”
Mrs. Wheeler told students: ” ‘You were hand-selected to be here. You will not fail,’ ” said Steve Hinchcliff, a member of the first graduating class and past president of the alumni association.
“And it was true. Very few people failed.”
