HISD board votes to rename 4 schools named after Confederate loyalists

Dowling Middle School was named after Richard Dowling, a Confederate army officer. According to the most recent data from the 2013-14 school year, the school is now 57.7 percent Hispanic, 40.3 percent African American, 0.4 percent Asian, and 1.1 percent white. less Dowling Middle School was named after Richard Dowling, a Confederate army officer. According to the most recent data from the 2013-14 school year, the school is now 57.7 percent Hispanic, 40.3 percent African ... more Photo: Rice University Courtesy Of Spec Photo: Rice University Courtesy Of Spec Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close HISD board votes to rename 4 schools named after Confederate loyalists 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

The Houston school board voted 5-4 Thursday to rename four campuses named after Confederate loyalists and postponed decisions on four others amid community concerns.

Trustees agreed to kickstart the process of renaming Henry Grady, Richard Dowling and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson middle schools and Robert E. Lee High School.

Now, a committee at each school, including a teacher, student, parent and alumni, will be charged with proposing a new name. The policy calls for the superintendent then to make recommendations to the board for a vote – to take place in May, according to the meeting agenda.

Board president Rhonda Skillern-Jones had included eight schools on the list for renaming, but trustees agreed to remove four – Lanier and Johnston middle schools and Davis and Reagan high schools – to allow for more discussion. Trustees who represent those four schools made motions to exclude them.

Newly elected trustee Jolanda Jones, who represents Lanier, posted Wednesday on Twitter that she supported changing the school's name. However, on Thursday she proposed removing the campus from the immediate renaming list, saying she wanted to host a meeting at the school.

"Sidney Lanier was a confederate soldier despite what some say," Jones posted on social media. "I would vote 2 change an anti-Semitic name if asked 2."

Numerous parents and students from Lanier dressed in the school's purple color and urged the board to keep the name. Sidney Lanier, they said, is better known as a poet than as a soldier in the Confederate army. They also said they had little time to discuss the issue because the school was not on the renaming list floated months ago.

"This is clearly a very important question, and it brings out a lot of emotion on both sides of the issue," Adriane Arnold, president of the Lanier parent group, told the board. "It is something our kids will be discussing at Lanier moving forward."

Trustee Harvin Moore tried to postpone the renaming item "indefinitely," but it failed on a 4-5 vote. Those who supported postponement – and then voted against the name changes – were Moore, Anna Eastman, Mike Lunceford and Greg Meyers.

All five minority trustees voted for the name changes.

Moore and Eastman said they were concerned that the renaming proposal and several other items were placed hastily on the board agenda by the president.

"I don't think my vote represents pro-celebration of the Confederacy at all," Eastman said.

Before the vote, James Douglas, president of the NAACP of Houston, urged trustees to eliminate Confederate loyalists from school names.

"Do I forgive them? Yes," Douglas said. "But I don't want to honor them. I think it's a travesty that this country honors people who create treason. They were willing to destroy this country in order to treat my forefathers as inhuman."

Skillern-Jones had backed the idea of renaming schools soon after the June 17 shooting deaths of nine black church worshippers by an alleged white supremacist in Charleston, S.C. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, also had promoted name changes, after his successful push for HISD in 2014 to eliminate school mascots offensive to Native Americans.

The board approved a policy in October that allowed trustees to initiate school name changes if deemed "in the best interest" of HISD. The policy says school names "must respect cultural differences and values."

Skillern-Jones added several controversial items to the agenda, including banning suspensions of young students and changing the district's school funding model.

Eastman, however, said: "We are in a time where our focus needs to be 100 percent on finding a new superintendent and making sure that our 89 under-performing schools have everything they need. And these discussions are important, but they have a time and place to happen."

Trustees on Thursday also selected Manuel Rodriguez Jr. to succeed Skillern-Jones as the board president – a particularly important post as they search for a new superintendent in coming months. Rodriguez, elected in 2003 and one of the longest-serving trustees, also was board president in 2007.

On another issue, the board, split along the same 5-4 lines as in the campus naming issue, and voted to create magnet programs at 10 schools, giving them extra funding and the prestigious label.

Eight campuses would be designated fine-arts magnet schools: Atherton, Crockett and Kashmere Gardens elementary schools; Dowling, Key and Ortiz middle schools; and Kashmere and Westbury high schools. Hartsfield Elementary would have a magnet program focused on environmental and animal science, and Stevens Elementary would specialize in science, technology, engineering and math.

Albert Lemons, the longtime principal of Atherton Elementary in northeast Houston, told the board he had been applying to the district administration since 1996 to get an approved magnet program. The plans calls for Atherton to get a fine arts program.

"I thank you for even thinking about us," Lemon told trustees.

A parent from Field Elementary questioned why her Heights-area school would not get a magnet program despite applying.

"The secrecy of all this suggests cronyism and corruption," said Patty McGrail, president of the parent group at Field Elementary.

In addition, the board commissioned a study of all school attendance boundaries – a study that could set the stage for shifting where students are zoned to attend.