Virginia Beach City Public Schools officials and graduates of the former Union Kempsville High School, once the city’s only school for African American students, will hold a public meeting next week. The purpose of the meeting is to give the community, especially those who attended the school, a chance to comment on plans to include a physical commemoration of Union Kempsville in a new school slated to be built on the original site.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 23, in the auditorium at the Center for Effective Learning, located at 233 North Witchduck Road in Virginia Beach. On the agenda will be a presentation from John Maddux, president, and Duane Harver, vice president, of Rodriquez, Ripley, Maddux, and Motley, the architectural firm that is designing the new alternative education center to be constructed at that site. They will share preliminary architectural plans for an exhibit area in the new facility to pay tribute to Union Kempsville’s historical legacy. A discussion period is planned to discuss opportunities for the public to get involved, especially in the collection of artifacts for exhibits.

Serving on the committee are:

• Committee Chairman John Kalocay is a veteran educator and administrator in the Virginia Beach School Division. He is currently assistant superintendent for the Department of Administrative Support Services for VBCPS.

• Mr. Tony Arnold is the director of the school division’s Office of Facilities Planning and Construction. In that capacity, he oversees all capital improvement projects including the new Alternative Education Center that will be constructed at the site of Union Kempsville High School.

• Dr. Elsie M. Barnes, a former member of the Virginia Beach School Board, is vice president for Academic Affairs at Norfolk State University.

• Ms. Ruth Bell is a retired teacher of the Virginia Beach City Public Schools. She is a former student of Union Kempsville High School.

• Dr. Tommy Bogger is director of archives at Norfolk State University. An author and co-author of historical books, including Free Blacks In Norfolk, Va., Bogger is a former student at Bruton Heights High School in Williamsburg, also a school for African Americans. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF) spearheaded the school’s transformation into a CWF facility.

• Mr. Joshua Darden is a graduate of Union Kempsville High School. Although a retired principal of Virginia Beach’s Bayside High School, Mr. Darden has worked in various positions in the school division. He is currently assistant principal of Open Campus.

• Ms. Edna Hendricks is a graduate of Union Kempsville High School. She has written Black History, Our Heritage: Princess Anne County/Virginia Beach, which includes information about the school. Ms. Hendricks is regarded as an expert on historical matters involving the school.

• Ms. Carolyn Lincoln is a community activist in Virginia Beach.

• Dr. Stephen Mansfield is vice president for academic affairs and Kenneth R. Perry Dean at Virginia Wesleyan College. He is also a noted historian and author of Princess Anne County and Virginia Beach: A Pictorial History.

• Mr. Mark Reed is administrator of the Francis Land House and the Adam Thoroughgood House, two historic homes in the City of Virginia Beach.

• Ms. Susie Whitehurst is a graduate of Union Kempsville High School. She is a retired teacher who has returned to the school division to work as a Student Support Specialist in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

• Ms. Kathleen O’Hara and Yolanda Jones-Howell, of the school system’s Department of Media and Communications Development, serve as staff to the committee.

With input from the committee, professionals from Rodriquez, Ripley, Maddux, and Motley have developed preliminary design plans including a replica of the Union Kempsville auditorium and an exhibit area to display artifacts.

Union Kempsville was first established as the Princess Anne County Training School in 1938 by a group of black parents who wanted to give their children an education that was denied to African Americans by white county officials, including the School Board. Those parents would later purchase land and materials to establish Princess Anne County Training School, a four-classroom cinderblock building on Witchduck Road in 1938. The school served students in grades one to seven. Older black children were forced to travel to Norfolk and pay tuition to attend Booker T. Washington, an all-black high school. In later years, Princess Anne County Training School was renamed Union Kempsville High School.

After Virginia Beach City Public Schools integrated in the late 1970s, Union Kempsville High School’s students were sent to predominately white schools in the city. The building later was altered to accommodate other school division needs. A portion of the structure now houses School Plant, a headquarters for the district’s trades operations. The remaining part of the facility serves as the Center for Effective Learning, a middle school alternative.

A $65.2 million school will replace the current structure and will provide a centralized location for all secondary alternative education programs. Plans call for the new alternative school to open in 2010.