Drake High new name narrowed to four
Two Native American names and two natural landmarks will match up next week in the third round of voting for a new name for Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo.
Voters next week will chose between bracketed match-ups of Creekside versus Bon Tempe, and Awani-wi versus Olema Trail. The latter two names are inspired by the Coast Miwok, a tribe native to Marin.
After the field is narrowed to two, students will stage a livestreamed debate over the finalists on March 22, according to principal Liz Seabury. The winning name will be forwarded to
Tara Taupier, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District, for presentation to the board of trustees later this year.
Students have published a voter’s guide to the finalists that is posted on the school website at tamdistrict.org. Students are also planning to write opinion pieces and editorials about their favorite names in the school newsletter and the Jolly Roger, the student newspaper, said Seabury.
Following the social justice movement last summer, the panel voted in November to remove the name of Drake, a 16th century English explorer who landed on the Marin coast in 1579, due to his ties to the slave trade.
The move was opposed by a large alumni group, mostly members
of the “No Name Change for Sir Francis Drake High School” Facebook page. They said Drake redeemed himself later in life and was worthy of recognition.
The school is being called High School 1327 during the transition, a reference to its address at 1327 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
On Thursday, site leadership council members overseeing the name change reviewed the results of last week’s online vote by more than 2,600 in the school community. San Anselmo, one of the original top four choices, was removed and Bon Tempe, the next highest vote-getter, was substituted in the final four.
The panel voted to remove San Anselmo because at least a third
of the students and staff at the school live in Fairfax or the San Geronimo Valley and not in San Anselmo. That name would disenfranchise those students and deter the goal unifying the school, panel members said.
“San Anselmo excludes some students,” parent Huda Al-Jamal said. “I live in the San Geronimo Valley and I have a business in Fairfax. Calling the school San Anselmo would make me and others feel disconnected and alienated.”
San Anselmo is named after a Catholic priest and thus has religious connotations. Furthermore, the town already has a school by that name — St. Anselm’s, a private parochial school affiliated with St. Anselm Catholic Church in Ross.
Panel moderator Ella Acker, a senior at the school, voted against removing San Anselmo from the top four because she said it would damage the trust and integrity of the voting process to disqualify one of the candidates after the field had already been presented to the community.
Teacher Richard Marshall said the voters were allowed to make three choices last week, so even if one was discounted, the others were valid.
“We need to have equity, social justice, unity and equality,” teacher Chizzie Brown said, in defending the removal of San Anselmo. “If we decide the
name doesn’t do it, that’s
OK.”
Acker noted that she had heard some students mocking Awani-wi, a Coast Miwok name for the ancient village that covered the land that is now part of San Rafael and San Anselmo.
“I’ve heard things,” she said. “Some people are coming up with super-inappropriate things. That’s problematic.”
Teacher Jasper Thelin said he said it was good for the school and community if they were challenged by the “strangeness” of Awani-wi.
“Marin being a little uncomfortable — that’s good,” he said. “There’s a learning curve. And we already have a strange name in Marin — Tamalpais.”
Acker said that placing a Coast Miwok name on the school wouldn’t necessarily enhance awareness of native peoples.
“The best way to educate kids about the Miwok culture would be to educate them,” she said.
Olema Trail is the name the Coast Miwok gave for an ancient pathway that connected Awani-wi with the village of Olema in West Marin.
Some panel members expressed concerns over Creekside due to the pizza restaurant by the same name in downtown San Anselmo, and the nearby elementary school Brookside.
Neither Marin filmmaker George Lucas nor late Olympian Archie Williams — a teacher and coach at the high school in his later years — made the final four. Seabury attributed
that to the reluctance of the community to select the name of an individual after all the controversy over Drake.
Lucas’s assistant did give permission for the school to use the filmmaker’s name, if it were selected,
Seabury said.
“He was very honored with the nomination, according to his assistant,” she said. “However, he said if it went up against Archie Williams, he felt that Archie Williams should be put forward instead.”