After a week of pushback, the school board tonight after installing newly elected board members Cindy Pickett and Joe DiNunzio will take on a heated issue of whether to rename North Davis Elementary school after long-time principal Mary Ellen Dolcini.
The Vanguard met with and spoke to a number of parents and teachers who were disturbed at the lack of outreach to the current stakeholders at the school.
“There was a lack of awareness about how quickly this is going to move,” a teacher explained. They saw it is “they’re talking about it” not “They are going to do it next week.”
“There has to be a better process,” one said. “They have a process for naming schools, but they don’t have a process for re-naming schools.”
The teachers felt like they already have a thriving community under the name of North Davis Elementary or NDE. “We’re North Davis – we are proud of being here,” one of the teachers explained. “Your name is part of your identity.”
“There’s an emotional attachment,” the 5th grade teacher said. “It just seems like this community is so much more than naming this after one person.”
The proposal was put forward by former board member Jan Bridge. She told the local paper, “We met with (school district superintendent) Bowes in July, with Board President Adams in August and with North Davis principal Sarah Roseen in September. As a group of people with no standing with the District we could not invite ourselves to the school and no one from the school invited us to come to
make a presentation.”
In a letter she explained that there were a number of opportunities between October 20 and December 5 by which community as well as parents and teachers at North Davis Elementary would have become informed about this process.
She wrote, “In light of not a single question being asked or comment of opposition after three months of opportunity to understand the proposal, I urged the board to take the action they did — to approve the renaming of the school effective at the beginning of the school year 2019-20.”
However, she wrote: “All of this said, it is not right nor fair that parents of elementary school children be asked to attend a school board meeting on the night before the last day of school before winter break.
“There is a provision in the board policies that will allow the board to postpone an item on an announced agenda to a certain date. I have emailed the board and requested that they invoke the policy and delay the discussion until a board meeting in January.”
An editorial from the Davis Enterprise urged the district to give the school community a chance to weigh in.
“The push to rename NDE has been too rushed and opaque,” they write. “In their eagerness to honor their friend and colleague, Dolcini’s admirers proceeded without including in the process the current students, parents and staff at North Davis, which is the school they wish to rechristen in her memory.”
They too argue that having this discussion right before the winter break is inappropriate and that “Any decision should be postponed until after the vacations have ended and some real outreach has been done to bring North Davis parents, students and staff on board.”
In a thoughtful commentary, Bob Dunning spoke of his friendship and admiration for Ms. Dolcini. He called her “not only a great educator, but a great humanitarian.”
He pointed out that everyone involved agrees “that Mary Ellen Dolcini’s remarkable legacy in Davis deserves to be honored.” Where we differ, he says, “is on the process, or lack of same, that led 
us to the potential approval of a name change at this coming Thursday’s board meeting.”
There is also disagreement “on whether changing a longstanding school name is the appropriate way to honor Mary Ellen’s memory and service.”
Initially, he was pleased with the proposal, but said, “I hadn’t anticipated the very valid concerns many current and former NDE students and teachers and parents would have over removing the name of a school they so cherished and closely identified with.
“I should have known better, because I had those very same feelings myself when my long-ago grade school, West Davis Elementary, had its name dropped in favor of César Chávez.”
The key point he raises: “By an overwhelming margin, current members of the NDE school community, from teachers to parents to students, feel they were left out of this process, as if their opinion on the matter doesn’t count.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
A completely different thought… let’s rename Marguerite Montgomery elementary school to Mary Ellen Dolcini elementary school… if you ask folk who knew them both, that would be completely appropriate… as Dunning might say, ‘trust me on this’… Mary Ellen might really love the irony of that! A perfect way to honor Mary Ellen…
Then you just replace one unhappy group of parents/ teachers with another. I can tell you as a parent at MME, that would be a non-starter.
King is likely the only school without a large engaged parent group. There is also Independent Study which would be a possibility.
Your assumption re: King High is both incorrect and more than a tad chauvinistic… but, perhaps ‘telling’…
“your assumption re: King High is both incorrect” Not sure where you get your information but King has an ADA of 47 students which makes it the same size as Fairfield and the student body is much more transient. How many parents in the PTA at King?
King high is the high school with the majority students of color, correct? Telling that Jim Hoch would single it out.
Jim Hoch: “…King has an ADA of 47 students which makes it the same size as Fairfield and the student body is much more transient.”
MLK HS has higher rates of free/reduced lunch, lower levels of family education, and likely less engaged parents to push back. What you suggest is a textbook NIMBY move.
“textbook NIMBY move” If you are writing a textbook I request attribution.
What you got against Marguerite Montgomery?
(this all goes to show why we shouldn’t name stuff after peeps)
Let’s rename either Chavez, King, or Korematsu for her if there is a group that is willing to pay for it.
VERY interesting comment… leaving out Willett (elementary), or Holmes, or Emerson (Jr Highs) … all named after white males… Willett was a re-name of a school… nah, just a coincidence…
Forgot about Holmes and Emerson. “just a coincidence” Not a coincidence at all. Davis has been a white town and the local people honored have all been white, like Dolcini for that matter.
And Willett…
I did not forget about Willett. I only listed names of schools named after non-Davidians.
Interesting… perhaps Waco?
An interesting and thoughtful Letter to the Editor appeared in last night’s Enterprise. it read as follows:
And there is one comment regarding that letter, which reads as follows:
I would be surprised if even a single NDE parent (or anyone on town under 45) reads the Davis Enterprise on a regular basis…
Ken A: “I would be surprised if even a single NDE parent (or anyone on town under 45) reads the Davis Enterprise on a regular basis…”
Probably dangerous to generalize, but that maybe a contributing factor to the discussion, or lack of it.
And, in the “almost not news” category – a manufactured problem seeking a solution which creates actual, albeit minor problems. 🙂
Yeah… hard to make an anti-growth comment on this one, right? Gotta stick to real ‘news’, and that means making sure there are no “new” residents…
[moderator: Howard, please stop replying to Ron. Thanks.]