San Diego's Robert E. Lee Elementary To Get Name Change

SAN DIEGO, CA: The fact that a San Diego school bore the name of Confederate Civil War general as its namesake will soon be a part of history.

The renaming of Robert E. Lee Elementary School in Paradise Hills to Pacific View Leadership Elementary was approved unanimously Tuesday night by trustees of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education.

Calls for the name change rose last year amid a nationwide movement to remove Confederate flags and other symbols of the Confederacy from public places. The movement was sparked after what authorities said was a racially-motivated massacre in which nine people were shot and killed inside a Charleston, South Carolina church.

The image of the alleged shooter posing next to the Confederate flag convinced some that the flag's reputation for white supremacy and racial oppression had trumped its symbolism of Southern heritage and ancestral pride. Subsequently, proposals were made recommending that schools named after Gen. Robert E. Lee be renamed.

• Renaming of Robert E. Lee Elementary Approved by School Board

In California, proposed legislation would have required such schools to be renamed effective with the 2017-2018 school year. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the legislation, stating, in part:

“I am returning Senate Bill 539 without my signature. This bill would prohibit the naming of any school, park, building or other public property after certain persons associated with the Confederate States of America. Recently we saw a national movement to remove the confederate flag from State Capitols in the South — a long overdue action.

"This bill, however, strikes me as different and an issue quintessentially for local decision makers. ... Local governments are laboratories of democracy which, under most circumstances, are quite capable of deciding for themselves which of their buildings and parks should be named, and after whom.”

The San Diego school was named for the Civil War general when it opened in 1959 in honor of his contributions as an American soldier, according to the district. Lee was a longtime U.S. Army officer, but as a resident of Virginia sided with the South in the war between the states.

"We see this as an important opportunity to have a larger community dialogue with students, staff and families about the school name and look at the history and research surrounding Lee in order to make a collectively informed decision about changing the name or retaining it," the district said in a December 2015 statement.

Surveys last fall of the school community in Paradise Hills and of the public at large showed widespread support for keeping the name as-is, or at least maintaining "Lee" in the title.

The school logo on its website at this time simply says, "Lee Elementary."

On Monday, the name of a school in Austin, Texas, was changed from Robert E. Lee Elementary to Russell Lee Elementary, an ABC affiliate reported.

According to San Diego Unified, no consensus was reached about the name at a pair of community meetings held last October and December. The surveys showed that nearly 60 percent of respondents didn't want to change the school name and just over half wanted to keep "Lee" as part of a new name if a switch were made.

So district officials turned the issue over to its Schools Name Committee, which, in February, unanimously recommended a name change.

During March and April, students and teachers at the school narrowed potential new names to Pacific View Leadership Elementary and Amelia Earhart Elementary.

Pacific View received the most votes in an April 19 election held in the school's auditorium in which students, staff, parents and family members cast ballots, according to the district.

The naming committee concurred with the selection and forwarded the recommendation to the school board for ratification.

The school's student body is now three-quarters Hispanic and only 2.5 percent white, according to the district.

Along with adopting the school's new name Tuesday, the board was asked to allot $9,000 to change the name on exterior locations, including the marquee and the aluminum letters mounted on the building.

— City News Service contributed to this report.

***Updated at 11:33 p.m. Pacific Time, May 24, 2016; Originally posted at 11:40 a.m. Pacific Time, May 24, 2016.

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