Lee High School changes name to LEE High School to avoid link with Confederate leader

The Robert E Lee statue at Lee High School. Click through to see the funniest ways San Antonio reacted to the name change.

The Robert E Lee statue at Lee High School. Click through to see the funniest ways San Antonio reacted to the name change. Photo: Lauren Caruba /San Antonio Express-News Photo: Lauren Caruba /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Lee High School changes name to LEE High School to avoid link with Confederate leader 1 / 17 Back to Gallery

Legacy of Educational Excellence High School.

Effective next school year, that’s the new name North East Independent School District trustees, by a 5-2 vote Monday, decided will replace Lee High School, the name the San Antonio school has held since it opened in 1958.

When they voted unanimously in August that the name would change, several board members made it clear they didn’t think honoring the Confederate general was inappropriate but wanted to avoid the distraction of an ongoing controversy. Violent white supremacist protests in Virginia had rekindled the national debate about memorializing the Confederacy, including Lee, its most prominent military leader.

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It seemed an open question whether Monday's vote will end the debate over the school's name. By design, it harkens to the original when used as an acronym — LEE — which drew both support and brickbats.

Board President Shannon Grona made the motion, which also maintains the Volunteers as the school’s mascot, calling it a compromise that would retain the school’s history while minimizing the complication and expense of reprinting and repainting a new name.

“We can honor the legacy of the past,” Grona said. “It is my hope that changing the name to Legacy of Educational Excellence will minimize the financial burden and help the community heal.”

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Edd White, a trustee who voted to rename the school when the board first grappled with the issue two years ago, said keeping Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee associated with the school in any form defeated the idea of changing the school’s culture.

“I just think we’re trying to put lipstick on a pig if you’re gonna still have the acronym LEE,” he said.

The board asked the public to submit ideas after its August vote, then selected the new name out of a pared down list of 542 suggestions. Board members had asked that the new name reflect an idea, rather than an individual, but had to eliminate 1,900 of more than 2,400 submissions for vulgarity or not adhering to the requirements.

Over the years, White said, the district had attempted to make Lee a more “palatable” figure by stripping away the corresponding Civil War symbolism from its athletic teams and spirit groups — the Confederate battle flag on uniforms, and, more recently, the band’s renditions of “Dixie” during football games.

“We’ve tried to clean it up,” he said. “And it didn’t work. And it may not work this time.”

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Immediately after the vote, three seniors on the girls’ soccer team stormed outside, sobbing.

“I have never been so mad about anything in my life,” said Kendall Kloza, a student enrolled in the STEM Academy, a magnet program at the campus along with the International School of the Americas and the North East School of the Arts.

The girls described an environment after the board’s Aug. 29 vote in which students questioned what “side” classmates were on and sat in class accordingly. They said only a small number of mainly NESA students wanted the name change.

The Lee name is “our spirit and our pride, and it’s the only thing we have left,” said Selah Evans, an ISA student.

The girls said students at other NEISD schools have made fun of their school as being run down and “ghetto.” The district should have used the money for changing the name to update facilities at the school, which has one field for its nine sports, they argued.

RELATED: Suggestions NEISD actually received to rename Robert E. Lee High School

Monday’s meeting repeated the 2015 division on the board, when it voted 5-2 against changing the name. Students had circulated competing online petitions over the name after a white supremacist gunned down nine black congregants in Charleston, South Carolina. The two trustees who favored the change that year, White and Jim Wheat, both voted against Monday’s motion. The change was inadequate, they said.

But the other board members, including its new District 3 trustee, Joseph Trevino, followed Grona’s lead. Trustee Sandy Hughey said it was important to remember that the school was a large community of students, parents and alumni. The acronym LEE would acknowledge that community and set a precedent that “we support the past, we support the future,” she said.

When they voted in August to change the name, trustees acknowledged that times had changed, citing student safety and the risk of disruption as the primary reasons for setting a new course.

But if the vote two years ago wasn’t permanent, wondered Tim Adams, a Class of 1979 graduate, why would this one be? He called the board “out of touch” for not interpreting the many inappropriate name suggestions they had received as a signal that many wanted to keep the name.

“What’s the point?” asked Adams, 56. “Because you really haven’t changed anything.”

lcaruba@express-news.net