Santa Rosa school board suspends discussion of school name changes

Facing criticism of how the process unfolded, the Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Trustees voted late Wednesday not to immediately change the name of two of its elementary schools, but to instead suspend those discussions until at least the 2021-22 school year while immediately launching an examination of how community input is sought.

The votes, after two separate agenda items and lengthy public debates, leave the names Luther Burbank and James Monroe on schools for the time being even as trustees vowed to continue the discussion of change.

The decisions came after hours of sometimes emotional debate and public comment that was at times deeply critical of what some described as the district’s top-down process in bringing the name change debate forward starting last summer.

As the discussion inched toward midnight, board members conceded that tasking school communities with forming committees to delve into deeply emotional debates over identity, systemic racism and power structures in how decisions are made, all while navigating a global pandemic and dealing with distance learning, was problematic from the start.

In the end, the board voted 6-1 to pause discussion on the name of Luther Burbank Elementary School after board members said the school-based committee process to study the name was flawed.

In a second vote, the board voted 4-3 to reject renaming James Monroe Elementary School after local Latino leader, the late George Ortiz, with the majority of trustees arguing that that study, too, should be deepened to include more people and more students.