Polk Elementary School in Fresno will be renamed following Central school board vote
Central Unified School District will rename James K. Polk Elementary, following a contentious yearlong debate over the school’s namesake’s racist views and actions.
The school board voted 5-2 on Tuesday to rename Polk, but also voted 7-0 against renaming Houghton-Kearney Elementary, another school being considered for renaming. The board voted 4-2-1 to change the current logo of Madison Elementary, which depicts a Native American wearing a headdress.
Trustees Jeremy Mehling and Jason Paul voted against renaming Polk and changing Madison’s mascot. Trustee Phillip Cervantes abstained from the vote on the mascot.
The renaming committee submitted new guidelines for the naming of schools for the board’s approval Tuesday, which trustees tabled, while passing the committee’s recommended 15-year moratorium on renaming schools on a 4-3 vote.
Central student Malachi Suarez, 11, spearheaded the movement to rename Polk Elementary via a school project in July 2021 and an accompanying Change.org petition which has garnered over 3,000 signatures to date.
“Representation matters!” he yelled out with a raised fist in his comments at Tuesday’s meeting to applause from some of the audience members.
His father Gabriel Suarez has been critical of the renaming process in Central, previously calling the committee an attempt at “bureaucratic slow down” and accusing the district of silencing voices.
Central Unified students of color have also spoken out about feeling unwelcome at the renaming committee meetings.
In addition, community members have challenged the results of a survey which found a majority of respondents opposed changing the name of Polk and Houghton-Kearney or changing Madison’s mascot. Critics have argued Central Unified students were left out of the survey.
Over 30 members of the community spoke at Tuesday night’s meeting. Some criticized the movement to rename the schools, saying that the move is too costly and erases history.
Several others, including Malachi Suarez and his family, urged the school to select namesakes that all students could feel proud of rather than known racists or slaveowners.
“Every single child in Germany knows about Hitler. They haven’t named any schools after Hitler,” said Gerald Bill, a Fresno resident who has taught at Fresno City College. “This is about who we choose to honor, not who we choose to teach about.”
The board deferred action on renaming the school to a future meeting. There isn’t an “administrative regulation” in place prescribing a process for renaming, Superintendent Ketti Davis said, but only precedent from past renamings. She mentioned a list of names the community has identified during similar procedures in the past that the board can consider for Polk’s new name.
If the board wishes to change the name before the start of next school year, “time is of the essence,” she said.
Despite the board’s vote to rename Polk, two members of the Suarez family were asked to leave the meeting after multiple outbursts during the board’s discussion of the proposed renamings, calling for more community input in selecting the new name.
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This story was originally published June 28, 2022 at 8:44 PM.
