Committee supports keeping Luther Burbank name on Santa Rosa school campus

After a complaint over lack of public access to its meetings in recent months, a group tasked with examining the name of Luther Burbank Elementary School in Santa Rosa reconvened Friday to explain its process and open discussion to the general public.

The group, which after surveying the community and ranking votes, found that keeping Luther Burbank’s name attached to the more than century-old school was the overwhelming choice, outlined the steps it took in coming to the decision and opened the meeting to public input.

As part of the review process, Burbank principal Debi Cardozo pointed to a school survey that asked students, parents and staff to name three words that represented the school community. Among the most frequently cited were family, respectful, safe, kind, caring and helpful.

“We asked ’Do you think Mr. Luther Burbank represents the values you listed in the survey?’ and an average of 95% of respondents said ’Yes,’” she said.

Among the school names considered in the name change discussion were Dolores Huerta Elementary School, A Street Academy, Burbank Elementary School, Luther Burbank Elementary School, Santa Rosa Elementary School and South A Street School.

In both the total votes and in ranked votes, Luther Burbank Elementary had twice the level of support than the next highest vote-getter: Burbank Elementary School.

The committee examined whether Burbank was connected to the eugenics movement as well as a signature on an anti-Chinese petition making the rounds locally in 1886, Cardozo said Friday.

“What I learned through this process is that the signature could have actually been Luther Burbank’s brother and not the Luther Burbank for which our school was named because the signature wasn’t ‘Luther Burbank,’ it just said ‘Burbank,’” she said.

The notion to examine the name of the school emerged last summer after Area 4 School Board Trustee Omar Medina suggested changing James Monroe Elementary School to honor George Ortiz, a local civil rights leader who died last year. Area 3 Trustee Alegría De La Cruz then suggested renaming Burbank after labor pioneer Dolores Huerta.

But like the Burbank committee, the group formed at Monroe found resounding support among school and community respondents to keep the name. At Monroe, voters and committee members supported the notion of dropping “James” from the name because it was added in the 1980s without proof that the school was named after the U.S. president. Local historians say the school was originally named after a Sonoma County pioneer family. The addition of “James” four decades ago simply confused the debate, they have argued.

“It was important to our committee to really take into consideration our school community’s feedback and the desire and will of the Luther Burbank school community,” Cardozo said. “It was really important that our families and students and parents felt that they were heard.”

In the only public comment at Friday’s public meeting, Mike Von der Porten expressed support for keeping Luther Burbank as the school’s name but expressed regret that the process wasn’t more inclusive from the start. It was Von der Porten, who is treasurer of the Sonoma County Historical Society, who filed a formal complaint with Santa Rosa City Schools contending the Burbank naming committee had violated the Brown Act which governs how public meetings are run.

District officials agreed, and two subsequent meetings were called. The second is at 1 p.m. May 14 on Zoom.

“I’m sorry that this process ended up starting off on the wrong foot,“ Von der Porten said during the public comment section.

Because the committee did not survey the broader community, like Monroe’s group did, the number of suggested new names was significantly smaller, Von der Porten said. Still, he backed the committee’s position that the name should remain as is and supported the group’s taking that recommendation to the full school board.

“Since it is an existing school and the name has a lot of support, there really is not reason to change it in my opinion,” he said. “I don’t think there is a big argument there.”

Both the Burbank and the Monroe naming committees are expected to present their findings to the full board of trustees at the regularly scheduled May 26 meeting. The board has the final call on any name changes.

You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.