By Andrew Towne<\/p>\n
The proposal by the Gay and Lesbian Historic Task Force to change the name of Hillcrest\u2019s Florence Elementary School to the \u201cChristine Kehoe School of Social Justice\u201d appears to be on its way to acceptance by the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education regardless of the preferences of students, parents, alumni, neighbors and other community members in the immediate neighborhood of the school.<\/p>\n
There was practically no notice to the community when the first \u201cstakeholder\u201d meeting was held last October. Presented at that meeting were 10 letters, mostly by Democratic politicians and gay activists. The remarkable thing about those letters is that so many of them appeared to have been copied from an underlying form letter that was given to the letter writers. The boilerplate statement \u201cI am confident the San Diego Unified School District and GLBT Historic Task Force can work collaboratively to ensure that the proper process and vetting occurs with parents, staff, neighbors, and others so that stakeholders can participate as the renaming is considered\u201d appears in six of the letters (with \u201cwe\u201d substituted for \u201cI\u201d in some of the letters.) Two additional letters use virtually the same words, but not exactly. And only two letters are what I would consider original.<\/p>\n
When people cannot even find their own words to acknowledge the importance of community opinion, it is clear to me that they couldn\u2019t care less about community opinion.<\/p>\n
I attended the second \u201cstakeholder\u201d meeting Jan. 15. Again, public notice of the meeting \u2014 if it existed at all \u2014 was scant, but that did not prevent an impressive outpouring of opposition\u00a0to the proposed name change. Of the 12 people who were given two minutes to speak, 11 were opposed and one was undecided.<\/p>\n
Again, I got the sense that the school district representatives were indifferent to the community. Entering the meeting room, there was what appeared to be a sign-in sheet that actually turned out to be a petition in support of the name change. I asked where the petition was for those who opposed the name change. The school district representative said that it was not the district\u2019s job to provide petitions of any kind. If that is true, then the petition in favor should not have been mixed in with informational flyers and speaker slips on the table by the entrance door.<\/p>\n
Speakers at the meeting had to fill in yellow speaker slips and note on the slips whether they were in favor or opposed to the name change. As far as I know, not one of the speeches was recorded and no notes were taken of what the different speakers were saying.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the members of the school board (who will make the final decision) were not present. So, instead of \u201chearing from the community\u201d \u00ad\u00ad\u2014 which the meeting was supposed to be about \u2014 all the school board will see is a stack of yellow slips marked \u201copposed\u201d or \u201cfor.\u201d I don’t call that \u201chearing from the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of the above smacks to me of the \u201cfix being in,\u201d with politicians and activists looking out for each other while not caring one bit about what the community wants.<\/p>\n
I think this proposed name change is a travesty, showing outrageous disrespect for the history and unique characteristics both of Florence Elementary School and the surrounding Hillcrest community. Florence Elementary is about 100 years old, and there is no good reason to change the name. Christine Kehoe has never been closely tied to the school, so the name change is purely a political statement.<\/p>\n
The proponents of the name change want to honor a gay politician. That is fine. But don\u2019t do so by disrespecting the history of a neighborhood that welcomed gays to its midst when other neighborhoods would not do so.<\/p>\n
![\"stg012715dAPRweb\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/stg012715dAPRweb.jpg\")
<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"