Concluding a nearly year-long search for new school names, the School District of Lancaster school board officially approved new names for the former Southeast (Hand) Middle School and Buchanan Elementary School: Hazel I. Jackson Middle School and Rita Smith-Wade-El Elementary, respectively.
“I think there’s something about having buildings named after local Black and brown women that feels really good,” board member Salina Almanzar said.
Hazel I. Jackson was an English teacher at then-Edward Hand Middle School from 1961-1970, the first female African American teacher in the School District of Lancaster. She then became the first African American professor at Millersville University, where she taught for another quarter-century.
Dr. Rita Smith-Wade-El was a renowned advocate for social justice in the Lancaster community, and a longtime professor of psychology and African American Studies at Millersville University. Called “a fierce advocate for civil rights,” she was education chair for the NAACP and received the prestigious Essence of Humanity Award from the Crispus Attucks Community Center in 2015.
“These decisions were not made lightly,” superintendent Dr. Damaris Rau said. “They were based on the recommendations of a committee” of some 20 district employees and volunteers that began its search for potential school names in the summer of 2020.
The schools will officially change names on July 1. They will be formally dedicated at the beginning of the upcoming school year.