Chesterfield School Board picks name for county’s newest middle school
Nov 12, 2024
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Chesterfield County's newest middle school, which is slated to open in Aug. 2025, officially has a name.
During a regularly-scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12, the Chesterfield School Board voted unanimously to name the under-construction middle school on Westerleigh Parkway "Deep Creek Middle School."
Feedback was collected on what the school should be named multiple times. In April, all three of the options included "Otterdale." The school board was then informed that the middle school is being built on land that was once the Otterdale Farm, on which enslaved people were made to grow tobacco and other crops until emancipation.
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"To ensure that all students feel connected to their school, the School Board returned to the 578responses the public submitted as possible names," said interim superintendent John T. Murray in a Nov. 12 school board memorandum. "Several people proposed Deep Creek Middle School. Deep Creek runs near the new middle school and is one of the streams that flows into Swift Creek Reservoir."
Murray ended the memorandum by officially recommending the school board choose this name -- which it did Tuesday night.
According to the school division, Deep Creek Middle School will be a three-story, 254,084-square-foot school building. It is anticipated to serve 1,800 students.