Recommendations to the Board of Education Executive Summary After five months of deliberation, over 1600 inputs from the community, and extensive research representing approximately 2000 work hours, the Recommending School Names (RSN) Advisory Committee presents this report recommending eight potential school names to the Board of Education for consideration. Committee members believe that students deserve to be inspired by role models of outstanding ability and accomplishment who recognized the inherent value and dignity of all people. To that end, six diverse candidates have been submitted for consideration: Ellen Fletcher, Frank Greene, Jr., William Hewlett, Edith Johnson, Fred Yamamoto, and Anna Zschokke. The Committee has an especially strong consensus for naming one of our schools in honor of Fred Yamamoto. These names will be appropriate for either school. Additionally, two geographic names, inspired by the natural settings near each campus, are offered: Adobe Creek for Terman; Redwood Grove for Jordan. These names, all compliant with Board Policy 7310, have a local connection to Palo Alto, and have the potential to inspire students. Committee Charge The RSN Advisory Committee was charged with proposing new names for Terman and Jordan Middle Schools for action by the PAUSD Board of Education. The names of these schools are being changed because the legacies of David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman as leaders of the American Eugenics Movement were determined to be fundamentally at odds with our values as a district. The American Eugenics Movement was not mere academic speculation, but an active initiative to enact a series of real- world policies and laws that did great harm to our society.1 This Committee accepted the unanimous decision by the Board of Education to change the names of these schools. The RSN Advisory Committee was provided Board Policy 7310 (Appendix A) as the guide to appropriate names for district schools. Specifically, BP 7310 allows for naming schools in recognition of: 1. Individuals, living or deceased, and entities that have made outstanding contributions, including financial contributions, to the school community 2. Individuals, living or deceased, who have made contributions of statewide, national, or worldwide significance 3. The geographic area in which the school or building is located In addition, the Board encouraged members to consider innovation, inclusion and integrity among the criteria in selecting individuals. The Board explicitly directed the Committee to refrain from consideration of any names that included “Jordan” or “Terman”. 1 Leaders of the movement, including David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman, used their positions of influence and prestige as Stanford academics to advance an agenda which included educational segregation, immigration restrictions, and the forcible sterilization of over 20,000 Californians they deemed to be “feeble minded” or “unfit”. Many of their words are indeed problematic, but it is their actions that irrevocably disqualify them as role models for our diverse community. 1 The RSN Advisory Committee is comprised of 13 members, including two staff members (Sharon Ofek, Keith Wheeler), three former City Council members (LaDoris Cordell, Leland Levy, Greg Schmid – also a former School Board member), two students (Owen Longstreth, Sarah Martinson) and six community members (Sara Armstrong, Ann Pianetta, Michelle Shabtai, Katie Talbot, Peter Ullman, and Sara Woodham). The Committee was co-chaired by Leland Levy and Sharon Ofek. Committee Criteria Parameters In addition to the Board’s charge, the RSN Advisory Committee added the following criteria: Local Connection – Although Board Policy allows for naming schools after individuals or entities of national or worldwide significance, all current schools’ names have a connection to Palo Alto or Stanford. The committee found no shortage of outstanding, inspirational individuals with strong ties to the Palo Alto community, and therefore determined to continue this precedent. No Living Individuals – The Committee agreed it was prudent to refrain from naming a school after individuals who are still alive, notwithstanding the contributions and inspirational value of many living nominees. Members focused on individuals who are deceased to better understand and appreciate their complete legacies. Avoiding Name Confusion – The Committee generally avoided school names that could be readily confused with existing nearby schools or facilities. Therefore, Palo Altans such as Esther Clark and Lucie Stern, and place names such as Rinconada, Garland and Mayfield were eliminated. Deviations from this criterion (e.g. Johnson Park) are noted in the Cautions section of individual biographies. Inspirational – The Committee strongly preferred individuals over geography. While accepting the fact that people are not perfect, members agreed that their inspirational stories would be beneficial. While support for geographical names was mixed, the group worked to ensure that at least one geographical name for each middle school was included. Process and Approach The process to derive a set of name recommendations was driven by the desire to secure significant community involvement and to be completely open and transparent. Committee Meeting Norms The Committee met in a series of twelve publicly noticed, open meetings between October 16, 2017 and March 5, 2018. Community members who attended meetings were provided an “open forum” to address the Committee. Their comments are part of the official record. Community Outreach To avoid conflict of interest, and to encourage broad community input, Committee members decided to accept nominations only from the community, as opposed to generating names within the Committee. It was imperative then to cast a wide net to ensure reaching as broad a cross section of the community as possible. This effort included: 2 ● A press release to the district’s media distribution list (Appendix B) ● Email outreach to current PAUSD students/parents/guardians through district channels ● Online nomination form on the District Website, including a banner display on the district homepage ● Paper nomination forms and collection boxes at Lucie Stern Recreational Center, the Junior Museum and Zoo, and all library branches ● Postings on NextDoor.com neighborhood message boards that spanned all PAUSD neighborhoods (except Los Altos Hills and East Palo Alto) as well as community social media outlets ● Requests to community groups, such as Channing House, Vi, Women’s Club of Palo Alto, and League of Women Voters ● Personal outreach by RSN Advisory Committee members encouraging people to submit nominations ● Middle school classroom discussions of renaming, including time for students to submit nominations Community input was accepted between December 16, 2017 and January 22, 2018. The form itself (Appendix C) communicated Board directives for valid name submissions, the reason for changing school names (a broader explanation was provided on the backside of paper forms), and fields for entering submitter’s name, contact information, school name choice, and reason for choice. Each member of the public was free to make as many separate submissions as desired. Although names of submitters were included on the forms, RSN Advisory Committee members agreed that submissions would be anonymous to us. Submitter names and email addresses were hidden in spreadsheets the Committee used as working documents. Committee representatives attended a PTA executive council meeting and a Site Council meeting at Jordan, as well as a Site Council meeting at Terman to provide updates to leadership about the process of the Committee and respond to questions. Submissions This process resulted in 1660 submissions from the community. Submissions were categorized by person, geographic, or other (Appendix D). The majority of nominations were for individuals. Total Unduplicated nominations Individuals/Entities 1281 (77%) 319 (63%) Geographic Marker 205 (12%) 50 (10%) Other 174 (11%) 139 (27%) Discussion & Voting At the end of the community input period, the spreadsheets of names and locations were reviewed. Each Committee member selected up to ten names and was encouraged to include at least one location name. From this first selection, 47 names received at least one vote, with 38 person and nine place names nominated. (Appendix E) 3 Geographic Nominations Many of the place names for both schools did not meet the geographical requirement of proximity to the school location, or were likely to be confused with other existing locations. After discussion, the RSN Advisory Committee agreed on Adobe Creek as a natural fit for Terman Middle School. With less consensus, the Committee proposes Redwood Grove as a geographic name for Jordan, taking note of the Redwood trees on its campus. Individuals Throughout the process, RSN Advisory Committee members held a strong preference for renaming Jordan and Terman after individuals because of their inspiration influence. After discussion, the initial list of 38 was reduced to 24 individuals/entities by rigorously discussing and applying the set of filtering criteria discussed above. Discussion extended to attributes of nominated names that were subjective in nature. These included: ● Innovation, integrity, and inclusion; ● Significance of nominee to middle school students; ● Persons who in any number of ways embodied the reason for changing the names of the schools; ● Meaning of different kinds of contributions - civic,