Lamar board picks names for schools

Trustee questions why choices didn’t include Hispanic community residents

Disregarding angry criticism from a trustee, Lamar Consolidated Independent School District’s board recently picked names of community residents for its next six schools without including those of any Hispanics.

“Fort Bend County is one of the most diverse counties in the nation,” trustee Anna Gonzales said at an April 14 meeting the week before board approval of the names. “And it’s really important to me that these names are multicultural, and that we’re naming individuals after leaders in our community that are Hispanic and African-American.”

Hispanic students made up about 45 percent of the district’s enrollment of 27,000 in the 2013-14 school year, according to the Texas Education Agency. Black students formed almost 19 percent and whites about 28 percent.

The names selected were for five elementary schools — the first of which is scheduled to open during the 2016-17 school year — and one middle school. The additional schools will bring the district to 28 elementaries and five middle schools for a total of 41 campuses.

Names for four of the elementaries will honor white

residents Don Carter, Carl Briscoe Bentley, Thomas R. Culver III and Kathleen Joerger Lindsey, and the middle school will be named for James W. Roberts, who is white.

One elementary school will be named after Fletcher Morgan Jr. a black rancher who helped people obtain homes.

All of those honored except Carter and Roberts are dead.

Gonzales raised objections on April 14 when a list of 14 names that were finalists in the process included no Hispanics and but one black.

“I think it’s important for our kids to have individuals to be role models after,” Gonzales said when the list was presented. “So, no, I’m not in agreement with these 14.”

She and trustee Frank Torres voted against approving the list, but Torres joined other trustees in approving the final six names on April 21. Gonzales was not present at that meeting.

A Fort Bend County grand jury indicted Gonzales in March on six briberyrelated charges based on allegations that a Houston businessman pursuing a district contract had offered her cash.

Board president Kathryn Kaminski had pushed back against Gonzales at the earlier meeting, stating that the district had other elementary schools named after Hispanic community members.

“You have two, Arredondo and Valasquez,” Gonzales replied. “It’s a shame.”

Three of Lamar CISD’s existing 35 campuses, Arredondo and Valasquez elementary schools and Navarro Middle School, are named after prominent Hispanic figures, district spokesman Phil Sulak said.

Just one, Arredondo, is named after a local Hispanic community member. John Arredondo was the first Hispanic to serve on Rosenberg’s city council.

William Valasquez was a Latino voting rights activist. Jose Antonio Navarro was a Texas statesman and revolutionary.

Trustees select school names from community nominations.

Lamar CISD community members submitted 62 names for the six campuses, either online or by mail, by Feb. 5.

Kaminski said this was likely a record number of submissions and that the board struggled to come up with an efficient way of picking names.

In March, the district held a public hearing during which community members had five minutes each to state why they wanted a nomination to be selected.

Public comments at the hearing lasted three hours and included 37 speakers.

Kaminski whittled the list of 62 to the 14 that had at least two votes from board members. From there, board members submitted their preferences to get to the final six.

Previously, Lamar CISD has always named campuses after prominent community members who were dead. This year for the first time, the district accepted nominations of people who were living.

The residents for whom the schools will be named range from teachers to judges.

Carter was a football coach and history teacher at Lamar Consolidated High School. Former student Clarence McCullough called him a father figure.

Bentley was a decorated war veteran, mayor of Fulshear, justice of the peace and farmer and rancher in the Fulshear area.

“He was a real life cowboy,” granddaughter Mindy Gardner said.

Lindsey helped found the Fort Bend County Libraries and was a lawyer and lifelong Rosenberg resident. Having an elementary school named for Lindsey was the perfect honor because “she believed that everybody should be able to read,” said her great-niece, Shelley Essex, a teacher at Highlands Elementary School in Fort Bend ISD.

Morgan worked for the USDA Farmers Home Administration for more than 27 years and was involved in community service including in the Brazos Bend State Park.

Culver worked in the Fort Bend County justice system for 38 years as an assistant district attorney-felony prosecutor and a district and a county court-at-law judge.

“His high moral character and demeanor both inside and outside his court were of high moral character and respectful,” friend Billy Atkinson said.

Roberts was Fulshear’s first mayor and an advocate for everything from early testing of learning disabilities to youth football.

Most of the suggestions of names were for white community members.

But Joe Vela, president of the Fort Bend Hispanic Heritage Forum and father and grandfather of Lamar CISD graduates, said he was familiar with two of the handful of Hispanic nominations, George Molina, who served as the county’s first Mexican-American sheriff, and Antonio Becerra, a veteran and former Rosenberg City Council member.

“There are (Hispanic) people here in the district who are deserving of that recognition,” Vela said.

The fact that no Hispanic candidate’s names were selected even though close to half of district pupils are Hispanic doesn’t make the district look good, Vela said.

Hispanic residents often don’t participate to the same extent as other groups in processes like nominations for school names because of barriers ranging from limited English proficiency to discomfort, Vela said.

Often, the district needs to reach out to the Hispanic community for participation, Vela said.

Had a school been named after a Hispanic community member, it would have made a difference to future Hispanic students, Vela said.

“It gives you a little bit of pride that recognizes someone that you knew, or your parents knew, that your grandparents knew, that they contributed to the community,” Vela said. “And you just want to continue that heritage.”