West County High School’s only graduating class walks the stage in Sebastopol

Back in December, Tyler Sword found himself walking away from his high school, a bullhorn in his hands and his chant echoing in the air.

“Who are we?” he yelled to the crowd of about 300 students who had joined him in protest at their Sebastopol campus that morning.

“West County!” the students shouted back, invoking the name of their school — one the school board had voted the night before to change.

It was the galvanizing step that pushed the students to walk out that day, and once again in January.

Thursday evening, Sword walked across the graduation stage at Chip Castleberry Field and received his diploma from West County High School. He and his 339 fellow graduates make up the only class that will ever claim that distinction.

Next school year, the campus name will change back to Analy High, the moniker it bore for 113 years before a controversial merger brought it together with rival school El Molino this school year, marking the first high school consolidation in Sonoma County in a generation or more.

Now, just over a year after consolidation became reality, the graduates of the combined high school expressed a mix of emotions about being the only class to bear the West County High name, one designated as a “placeholder” by the school board in 2021.

“The name is always going to have a special place in my heart,” said KatieAnn Nguyen, an early graduate who wrapped up her high school credits in three years. “This year, even if you push aside the fact we just came back from a global pandemic, there are a lot of things stacked on top of that: the consolidation, the big prominent role of activists on campus, and all these other issues that were brought to light.”

At Thursday’s graduation, the students’ appreciation for the uniqueness of their situation was clear.

“Appreciate this moment, this group,” said Drake Romero in his graduation speech to his classmates. “These individuals who brought that West County determination and hope, to create a community that has never been before, and will never be again.

Compromise on moniker

The switch to West County as a school moniker was rooted in compromise. District officials seemed to recognize the El Molino community was going to feel the loss of its campus more acutely than Analy students, who would return to the same campus they left in March 2020.

The board’s decisions to adopt a new name, to make the school colors the red of El Molino and blue of Analy, and to keep both the lion and tiger as mascot made some students feel more hopeful about the transition and any lingering divisions, said Dylan Peña Pérez, a senior who used to attend El Molino.

“I definitely think rebranding to West County was very beneficial for the El Molino community,” Peña Pérez said. “It felt more inclusive ... Instead of being absorbed, we were being welcomed into a place that would be for both of the schools.”

The school board’s decision to change the name came at the end of a tortured process that began back in October 2020, when district leaders started weighing consolidation as a possible solution to a looming $1.2 million structural deficit.

After five months of discussion and alternative proposals, the school board voted in March 2021 to move forward with the consolidation in the next school year. El Molino students were moved to the Analy campus, while the district offices and students from Laguna, the alternative high school, went to the El Molino campus in Forestville.

Community ire about the move to consolidate the schools did not quickly recede. Resistance continued in the form of a lawsuit and a recall effort against the three board members who voted for consolidation. The lawsuit was thrown out by a Sonoma County Superior Court judge and the recall effort failed to garner enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

As the adults were arguing, the members of the class of 2022 were mentally preparing to attend the consolidated campus ― for them, it was just one more factor they had to prepare for, on top of adjusting back to in-person school after spending their junior year in distance learning in 2020-2021.

“There was already so much stuff going on,” said Isaac Rodrigues, a senior who attended Analy before consolidation. "The students made the best out a of a situation that didn’t necessarily favor them at all times.“

Troubled start of new era

When students returned in August, members of student leadership wore the new West County identity proudly, sporting blue and red tie-dye shirts on the first day of school. The fall sports season provided opportunities for former Analy and El Molino students, alumni and parents to join together on the stands or in the gym under the West County name.

“Something that both athletic directors at our school had been saying from the beginning was that the athletes were going to lead the way in helping consolidation go smoothly,” said Rodrigues, a lineman. “Because when it came down to it, it was just a bunch of students thrown into the same thing. We had to find a way to get through it.”

But discontentment lingered about the change to West County, most of it among Analy alumni, who argued that more than a century of history was being lost.

A school district survey of West County High students in the fall also showed a majority supported the return to Analy, though some people pointed out more students at the campus were originally Analy students.

On Dec. 1, 2021, the board voted to restore the Analy name. The next day, Sword and his classmates walked out in protest.

“I felt really disappointed when they decided to go back to Analy because, as someone who had been putting in that work in the leadership class to build a new community, we felt like we were being kind of shut down,” Sword said. “It was hard because we felt so powerless and so unheard.”

Year marked by student activism

The board never changed its decision and the school will go back to being Analy again this summer. But the spirit of activism born in those moments lasted throughout the year for some students.

Nguyen and Peña Peréz formed the group West County High Activists, which became involved in other issues that popped up throughout the year. They spoke up when a student used a racist poster to ask another student to prom, an incident that roiled the campus and preceded the resignation of the interim superintendent at the time. They also pushed for the removal of plaques placed by the Native Sons of the Golden West, pointing to the group’s discriminatory history.

Most recently, the group released a list of policy demands about training, discipline and curriculum it will present to the school board at its June 8 meeting.

“To me, West County High School is always going to be a place where I felt like I could speak up and fight for these communities,” Nguyen said. “What I want people to know about this school and this name is it marks a beginning of a lot of people realizing that the youth have a voice and they’re willing to figure out how to work together.”

So, how do the graduates feel about their lone status as alumni of West County High? It depends on who you ask.

For Peña Pérez, there’s some feeling of continued disappointment.

“I’d like for more West County classes to graduate, not just ours,” he said. “I’d like our school to be inclusive of both El Molino and Analy communities.”

Rodrigues, though, said the name held less meaning for him. It might sound surprising, coming from a young man with deep family ties to Analy.

The resilience and versatility students brought to campus each day, he said, are evident no matter what the name is.

“This year is one that I’ll remember where people put aside whatever differences they had and just made the best of it,” Rodrigues said. “People found a way.”

Sword, who throughout his elementary years had looked forward to following in his siblings’ and mother’s footsteps in winning the “Most School Spirit” award at El Molino, found a way, too. He learned recently he won the same recognition for West County High School.

“The name West County, it means something to us, the senior class, because this was our identity this year,” he said. “But even if it’s lost next year, the underlying foundation of that community is still in that school ... It’ll never be the same.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.