OKC board to consider school name changes
Oklahoma City School Board members meeting Monday night will consider changing the names of three elementary schools named after Confederate officers.
Members decided last month they wanted to vote to rename Jackson, Lee and Stand Watie before collecting any public input on the “future names” of the schools.
Superintendent Aurora Lora sought to survey parents, students and community members for input, but her recommendation was pulled from the agenda at the board’s request.
Board Chair Paula Lewis said panel members felt like “we had the cart before the horse.”
Following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, stemming from white nationalists protesting removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, several school board members called for renaming the schools.
Lora has said that some facilities named after “historical” figures do not “reflect our values in 2017.”
Board member Mark Mann said Friday he supports renaming the schools and would like to see one named after former Oklahoma Gov. Henry Bellmon, the state’s first Republican governor.
Bellmon, who died in 2009, also served in the U.S. Senate, the Oklahoma House and as chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party.
One of his most notable accomplishments was the 1990 passage of the Education Reform and Funding Act, commonly known as House Bill 1017, which increased funding for common education, among other things.
“I don’t know anyone in the last 50 years, anyone who has put their career on the line like he did to help public schools,” Mann said of Bellmon. “I think we ought to think about naming one school after him.”
Process will be inclusive
Should the board vote to rename the schools, which it is expected to do, community engagement efforts related to replacement names would follow, district officials said.
“As we get into the process, ultimately those school sites, the kids, the parents, the people that live in those neighborhoods, need to have the largest input,” Mann said.
The principals of the three schools have said there is no support for a name change.
“They’re more concerned about what goes on inside the building than what goes on outside,” Stand Watie Principal Theressa Manzanedo said, referring to parents and staff.
Last month, historians told the board that a fourth school — Wheeler Elementary — was not named after Confederate Gen. Joseph Wheeler after all. The district plans to dedicate the school in honor of James Wheeler, a former city father.
Also Monday night, Lora and other district officials are expected to discuss state test results recently released by the state Education Department.
Preliminary results obtained by The Oklahoman show that nearly 83 percent of district students scored below proficient on new English and math tests taken last spring.
At 13 schools, including nine elementary schools, every student in at least one grade who was tested failed to demonstrate proficiency in either English or math, results show.
Lora had warned that more stringent tests would result in lower scores.
Monday’s board meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. inside the Northeast Academy auditorium, 3100 N Kelley.