Process Announced to Consider More Than Just Renaming Robert E. Lee Middle School

 

SAN ANGELO, TX — The San Angelo ISD announced Monday night their process for considering the renaming of Robert E. Lee Middle School as well as other facilities, such as John H. Reagan Elementary School.

Lee was the commanding general of the Confederate States Army until his surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. The middle school was built and named after Lee in 1949. Reagan, a Texan, was the Postmaster General of the Confederate States. The elementary school was named after Reagan in 1909.

Efforts to address the renaming was brought forward by citizen Jessie Ramon, Jr. who said he has children attending the school when he addressed the San Angelo ISD Board of Trustees in June.

Angelo State University professor Dr. Jason Pierce, associate professor on the American West, Native American History and American environmental history has become the anti-Lee spokesman for what appear to be closely aligned if not organized proponents of removing the Confederate general’s name. Pierce claimed at the July 20 Board of Trustees meeting that the naming of Robert E. Lee Middle School in 1949 could have been due to white blowback caused by early rumblings of the Civil Rights movement following World War II. The professor was joined by the heads of both the Angelo State University NAACP chapter, Destiny Brown, and the San Angelo NAACP chapter, Shirley Spears. Both demanded board action to remove Lee’s name. Spears said San Angelo’s NAACP added their demand to changing the name of Reagan Elementary as well.

The ASU professor and NAACP heads were joined by citizens Lana Primo and Camille Martinez calling for the schools’ names changed.

Of the five presenting to the board Monday evening, only one, Willie Flores, said he did not want to change the name of either Lee or Reagan.

“The name is just a name to me. My kids go to John H. Reagan. They don’t go there because he was a slaveholder… It’s not in a name. If the people want to change the name, I want those who want to change the name have to pay for it. … If we open Pandora’s Box, where does it end?” Willie Flores asked in conclusion.

WATCH: San Angelo's Civil War

Board President Lanny Layman said in comments to the board, the ratio is about five to one in favor of changing the name of Lee. Reagan Elementary School’s name is a new consideration, he said. Layman holds his cards very close to his chest and would not reveal where he currently sits on the controversy.

The San Angelo ISD administration has set forth an organized plan to fully vet the proposal for changing the Lee name, or any other facility name within San Angelo ISD’s jurisdiction. Lee and Reagan are in the crosshairs, but other facilities, such as Lamar and Fannin Elementary Schools may soon attract targeting by the same citizens protesting Lee. Mirabeau B. Lamar, the 2nd President of Texas and firm states rights advocate (especially concerning laws allowing slaves), and James Fannin were close friends and owned slaves. Fannin, who died at Goliad, was a slave trader. Lamar died a year before the Civil War began.

The more historical names are scrutinized in and around San Angelo ISD, doing so may force the administration to rename many facilities.

“The plan focuses on respecting community ideals while embracing inclusivity and equity for students. The process will include Town Hall and survey opportunities open to all interested persons for broad input as well as other events designed for groups particularly impacted by the matter,” a San Angelo ISD press release stated.

A few virtual town halls are planned starting August 4. A special committee called the Advisory Design Team “reviews the data to determine next steps.”

All of these steps will be facilitated by two career educationists, Dr. Luz Martinez and Dr. Dawson Orr.

“Dr. Martinez is a bilingual educator with over 30 years of experience including three principal positions at economically disadvantaged, minority-serving high schools. Dr. Orr’s professional experience in education spans 40 years. He previously served as superintendent in Pampa ISD, Wichita Falls ISD and Highland Park ISD, and is now a college professor,” the district stated in a press release.

Superintendent Carl Dethloff described the facilitators. “Dr. Orr is a great facilitator, person and leader,” he said. Of Dr. Luz, Dethloff said her capabilities as a bilingual facilitator will support the San Angelo ISD’s plan. The superintendent added that her leadership experience as the high school principal of three different and diverse high schools with high populations of under resourced students is necessary and needed.

Layman said the administration will present a plan for action, and for the board to vote on, October 19. That plan will either be for the retention or renaming action(s) as recommended by the administration.

Robert E. Lee’s fate in San Angelo will be decided then and what could happen is Lee’s legacy here may take out several of his contemporaries should the board vote to rename multiple facilities.

Here is the schedule of events on renaming Lee Middle School and other facilities:

  • August 4: virtual Focus Groups
  • August 6 (11am-1pm and 6pm-8pm): virtual Town Hall meetings open to the public
  • September 1: in-person Focus Groups
  • August 26-September 14: online survey open to the public
  • September 15 (11am-1pm and 6pm-8pm): virtual Town Hall meetings open to the public
  • October 8: Advisory Council Design Team reviews the data to determine next steps
  • October 19: proposal on retention or renaming action taken to the Board of Trustees for consideration

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I can't imagine with all the craziness in the world this bull$&%* has made it to San Angelo! Do you people not have anything else to do?! Slavery happened! A LONG time ago. Changing building names will never change that! LET IT GO grasshopper. Find something constructive to spend your time on.

In the future we should only name things after perfect people who didn't do anything wrong. Since there has only been one of those Jesus middle school, Jesus elementary, Jesus federal building. It might get confusing but at least we won't have to deal with things named after people with flaws. Somehow I think the people wanting Lee renamed won't like this way any better.

To change any PUBLIC EDUCATION SCHOOL names is racist itself. Black lives don’t matter won’t change anything that will make no difference. It’s all freedom of speech and I don’t see thugs like George Floyd to be honored by changing freedom of speech or history. It’s is his fault that he is DEAD.

"It’s is his fault that he is DEAD." is likely the most asinine thing ever posted here. He was murdered by a rogue cop.

Have you followed any of Dr. Dingbat's insightful commentary sanglo? But it's almost a photo finish.....

..is a favorite pastime for certain people, with little to no education.

The radical Left know this, as well as how impressionable this crowd is. What we're seeing here has jack shit to do with Mr. Floyd, and everything to do with opportunistic Liberals using poor, dumb assholes to further their agendas.

Why do you think Chicago officials have ZERO interest in addressing the inner city gang violence which plagues their citizens daily?

Fewer gun related deaths means fewer pedestals to jump on, to hollar about depriving the rest of us of our right to legally own firearms.

Black lives don't matter to Mayor Lightfoot, but Black deaths are indeed invaluable.

There is no clean or dirty version of history it just is. As Jack said these were great men and I am sure of they were born today they would have fought just as hard for freedom and civil rights as they then fought for what they considered their country. They like everybody were a product of their time. You would be hard pushed to find any white man that considered the black man his equal in the 1860's. Indeed, most abolitionists would not have gone that far. These men are a product of their education and environment. To them slavery was legal and as natural as getting out of bed in the morning. As for the traitor argument the United States in those days was something of an abstract concept to most both North and South. A man was first a Virginian or Marylander, a Hoosier or New Yorker and only second an American. The states were sovereign entities then and people were loyal to their state. The important thing here is simple. These men and women were important in the history of your country and as such they should remembered honoured or not. Most people are intelligent enough to despise a historical characters less civilised attitudes but to accept them as idiosyncracies of their time, education and the societies they lived in but still to respect their contributions to history both good and bad.In short assigning modern values and motivations to the actions of historical characters will always result in censure.

We can’t change the past nor should we, thats how we learn. This is the south and these people are our history. Were they perfect no, but neither are any of us. I’m sure the schools in the north are named after people that fault in the war too and I’m sure they weren’t perfect some even had adultery in their past, so do we take their names down too? This is how we learn and it’s time to stop hugging trees and put your big boy and girl panties on and stop getting offended by everything. Grow up!

SnS, Wed, 07/22/2020 - 15:49

You have to know that "Robert E. Lee's fate in San Angelo" has already been decided. But it will not end there. Get ready for Cesar Chavez Middle School, and Harvey Milk Elementary. We'll probably get an Obama elementary AND middle school. They are accepted progressive icons because they abhor the classic Western (Judeo/Christian) culture.

This is not about history ,or slavery, or the civil war, or even racism. This is about destroying traditional Western (Judeo/Christian) culture. It's about progressives pushing their humanistic government-dependent worldview on the rest of us instead.

You cannot look at history from our current point of view and understand. It's the ultimate in virtue signaling. It is a classic narcissistic progressive tendency (pardon the redundancy) to look at history through modern progressive values. Instead of teaching people to look at history from the historical perspective first then learn the lessons they did not at the time, we are teaching people re-write or simply ignore history. That serves no useful purpose. Well, except maybe to allow the Democrats to eventually claim that they were not the party of slavery, or the party of the KKK, or the party of Jim Crow, or the party of segregation, or the party of abortion, etc...

SnS

Goodness, just leave all the schools the names they are now. You cannot change what happened in history years ago. It just a part of life. There were slaves and now there's not. We have had white presidents and one black president. So what! It was taught in school that Columbus discovered America, now there are rumors he didn't and someone else did. There are homeless people here and there are ones who have a roof over their head. Why are we worried about a school name when people in this city have no place to sleep and very little food. Wake up San Angelo and get your priorities straight.

The men who served in the Confederate army were pardoned as part of the Nation's healing process. It wasn't all perfect after the Civil War. We still had carpetbaggers and others who took advantage of the situation. The men on both sides endured incredible hardship. You really can't get a sense of what is was like without walking the battlefields and spending a little time in the field in the military yourself. Men on both sides should be remembered. The people reunited a broken nation back then through reconciliation. Now we have Marxist mutts trying to destroy it through denouncing history, creating chaos and anarchy.

and for San Angelo that's saying a lot. the change won't be cheap because the will have to tear down the signage etc then will have to get all new banners shirts etc made reflecting whatever change they make. As for the person who proposed the change, is he footing the bill personally? nope all the taxpayers will get stuck for it and then complain because their already high property tax just got higher (those that pay taxes anyway) it's history for goodness sake. those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

What a waste of taxes!! So now we are going to allow PhD’s with little to no common sense lead the charge to rename god knows what & completely waste our time & money. What idiots! I don’t like some of the street names because they don’t honor American Indians - I guess someone will lead a charge to to change that eventually. We have better things to do, than to change school names. I bet this ASU professor has trouble tying his shoes & cant walk & chew gum at the same time! This is most definitely San Angelo’s dumbest hour! I wonder why we never get Apple factories or Black & Decker or Tesla...oh, that’s right - major corporations don’t give a crap what the schools are named, they just want educated graduates, something we have little of here!

Should we rename Robert Lee Texas? Robert Lee was also a military officer in the United States Army. History is History, erasing history serves no other purpose than undoing the past to remake the future.

..that this debacle is part of a misguided and futile effort to appease unemployed, shut-in losers and career criminals who can barely articulate coherent thoughts and phrases?

Couldn't we just meet in the middle and mail out vouchers for menthols and 10% discounts for FUBU wear, or promo codes for Pokemon apps?

What if some of us don't like the new name, or plaques and/or monuments which may follow the revision? Can we urinate on and deface the school, Democrat-style, since this manner of political dissent is the newly accepted m.o. of today?

Let's see...George Washington had a lot of slaves. So did Jefferson. So does this para-logic demand that Washington D.C. should be renamed? Idiocy of the highest order. More grievances from the grievance culture. This is posturing and symbolism to conform to bullying BLM propaganda done in the name of "community ideals." As if such ideals exist in the community. Try an experiment. Go out into the community, whatever that is, and ask someone what their community ideals are. This is all contrived feel-good speak. Here's a learning tip from a retired teacher: try reading what Robert Lee himself actually said about slavery and form your own conclusions. That's called learning about history.

Dee456, Thu, 07/23/2020 - 11:30

What's next?! Defunding the police? I have a feeling this is just the beginning of more demands coming soon from these liberals who are never happy until all of America is under their control!

Shouldn't this be a democratic process including votes by all the citizens of San Angelo?

I do believe that SAISD would have better things to spend OUR tax dollars on, but I am sure that they will give in to the crybabies. I am glad that I chose not to send my children to SAISD.

History must not continue to be whitewashed. Treachery must not be honored. Leave the names, but they must be accompanied by plaques listing the crimes against the United States of America. Statues should be demolished. They are of no historical value other than putting treacherous secessionists in plain view.

"He who controls the past, commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past." - Kane (paraphrase of Orwell)

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