Fairfax City Changes School Name To Honor NASA Mathematician

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — The City of Fairfax School Board voted unanimously Monday to change the name of Lanier Middle School to Katherine Johnson Middle School.

The name, Katherine Johnson Middle School, will go into effect in July 2021 before the start of the 2021-22 school year. Born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Katherine Johnson was one of three Black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate school in mathematics.

Johnson went on to become a mathematician who worked for NASA for 33 years. In 1962, she was part of the team that prepared for the orbital mission by John Glenn, controlling the trajectory of Glenn's capsule mission from liftoff to splashdown.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2015 by President Barack Obama. She died on Feb. 24, 2020 at the age of 101.

“Katherine Johnson has been an inspiration to me for many years, and I know she will be an inspiration to our students,” Dr. Phyllis Pajardo, Fairfax City School superintendent, said in a statement.

In September, the City of Fairfax School Board voted to change the name of the middle school after a three-month public input period. More the 85 percent of the comments from the community favored changing the name, according to the school board.

In 1959, the school was named after Sidney Lanier, a Confederate soldier who in the decades after his death was embraced as the "poet of the Confederacy." Lanier Middle School is one of four schools in the City of Fairfax.

Both City of Fairfax and Fairfax County students attend City of Fairfax schools. The City School Board — a five-member elected board representing Fairfax City residents — is responsible for the naming of all four city school buildings. Lanier Middle School has almost 1,050 students, with 55 percent of the student population coming from Fairfax County and 45 percent city residents.

Through a contract with Fairfax County Public Schools, the City of Fairfax owns the four school buildings — Fairfax High School, Lanier Middle School, Providence Elementary School and Daniels Run Elementary School — while Fairfax County Public Schools provide educational services, staffing, transportation and food services.

The public submitted almost 300 names to replace Lanier Middle School, which were narrowed to six finalists by an advisory team. On Oct. 5, Pajardo presented the six finalists — Maya Angelou, Katherine Johnson, Legacy, Fairfax Woods, Independence and City — to the school board.

The school board decided to adopt Katherine Johnson as the name of the city's middle school, which uses Eagles as its nickname.

“Her contributions continued to serve the nation and helped ensure that the ‘Eagle had landed…and landed safely,’" City of Fairfax School Board member Jon Buttram said in a statement. "I think it appropriate that the name Katherine Johnson for our middle school will inspire new generations of ‘Eagles’ for our community, and I look forward to watching them fly.”