Sikh name on Central Unified elementary school reflects Fresno area’s rich diversity | Opinion
Congratulations to the Central Unified School District for continuing to acknowledge the diversity of its 16,000 students by naming a new elementary school after Sikh human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.
When the district’s newest elementary school opens in August, it will be the first public school in North America named after a person of Sikh descent.
The board voted 6-0, with Trustee Joshua Sellers abstaining, for the Khalra name.
Fresno County has schools named after Blacks, Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Armenian and Hmong individuals. According to the state Department of Education, Latinos account for 66.7% of students in the county, followed by whites (14%), Asian (9.9%), and Black (4.5%). The U.S. Census pegs the Sikh community in the county at 70,000.
In 1980, Miguel Hidalgo Elementary School opened in central Fresno to help alleviate overcrowding at nearby schools. It was named after Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, a Catholic priest who led México’s fight for independence from Spain.
A decade later, the Fresno chapter of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) lobbied that one of four new elementary schools to be built by Fresno Unified be named after Ezequiel “Zeke” A. Balderas, an outreach consultant who died of leukemia the previous year at the age of 38. When the school in southeast Fresno opened its doors in 1991, it bore the name of the son of migrant farmworkers who was known to stress the importance of education.
That led to more schools in Fresno Unified named for Latinos: the downtown César E. Chávez Education Center (1997) was named after the United Farm Workers founder; Elizabeth Terrónez Middle School (2000) was named after a popular high school principal; Mario G. Olmos Elementary (2007) was named after a Fresno County judge who died in a car accident in 1990; the Phillip J. Patiño School of Entrepreneurship (2015) was named after a local educator/district administrator; and, former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera lent his name to an elementary school in southeast Fresno that opened in 2022.
Gen. Vang Pao Elementary School opened in 2012 after more than 10,000 signed a petition that the new school be named after the Laotian general who aided the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
The school board changed the name of Forkner Elementary to H. Roger Tatarian Elementary in 2021, becoming the first school in Fresno Unified named after an Armenian. William Saroyan Elementary, named after the famous Armenian author, is in Central Unified.
In Clovis Unified, Satoshi “Fibber” Hirayama Elementary opened its doors last year. The Phillip Víctor Sánchez Intermediate School is scheduled to open in the 2025-26 school year.
Indian media took notice of name change
Central Unified’s Justin Garza High School, which opened in 2021, was named after the former Central High football coach who died in 2017 at the age of 41 after battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma for six years.
Jaswant Singh Khalra Elementary is a suitable name. An estimated 1,700 current students in Central Unified who identify as Punjabi/Southeast Asian – or 10.55% of the student population – now have someone they can identify with on the name of the district’s newest school.
“For me and for many of our South Asian community members, he’s absolutely a person of admiration, because (his life) is a story of loyalty and friendship, integrity, courage and principle,” said board president Naindeep Singh.
“His daughter attended Fresno State, his family resides in our district, and probably thousands of our families here in the Fresno area were able to seek refugee asylum because of his work.”
Singh said the naming represents the district’s mission of embracing diversity and empowering youth.
Fresno Bee reporter Leqi Zhong reported that the new school will have a capacity of more than 600 students from preschool to sixth grade. The district said the campus will include a multipurpose building with an outdoor amphitheater, asphalt play court and modern sports play areas.
Khalra, a bank director in Amritsar, Punjab, investigated 25,000 illegal killings involving the Punjab police. He was abducted by Punjab police and killed in 1995. Indian media touted stories about the school name.
Trustees in the Fresno, Clovis and Central school districts recognize the importance of having school names honor the communities whose students attend those schools. If only other elected officials would recognize the same for street names.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 5:30 AM.