Eligieron esperanza.
After weeks of community input, families, students and staff at Fort Worth ISD’s César Chávez Elementary chose a hopeful new name for their Diamond Hill campus: Esperanza Elementary.
The district’s state-appointed board of managers unanimously renamed the campus Tuesday. The vote completed a process that began after managers ended a student holiday tied to the Latino civil rights leader’s birthday.
The new name — Spanish for hope — was recommended by the campus’s site-based decision-making committee after weeks of community input, district officials said. More than 500 people participated in the first round of surveys, submitting 108 comments and providing more than 6,000 ratings.
Louis Kushner, the superintendent’s chief of staff, said the district presented the top 15 names from community feedback to Principal Monica Ordaz after an April 20 campus meeting. The campus team then narrowed the list from 15 names to 10, then three, then one.
What were the top names suggested for César Chávez Elementary?
Fort Worth ISD’s community input process produced these initial top 10 suggestions for renaming César Chávez Elementary:
- Ellen Ochoa Elementary
- Sonia Sotomayor Elementary
- Barack Obama Elementary
- Jaime Escalante Elementary
- Esperanza Elementary
- Leesa B. Anthony Elementary
- Jesus Medellin Elementary
- HP Laguna Elementary
- Gabriela Mistral Elementary
- Jose Hernandez Elementary
The vote marked the latest step in Fort Worth ISD’s move away from Chávez after a New York Times investigation detailed allegations that he groomed and sexually abused girls and women connected to the farmworker movement.
The school opened in 2002 after Fort Worth trustees approved the name César Chávez Elementary in 2000, alongside Dolores Huerta Elementary and Clifford Davis Elementary, as part of an effort to honor Hispanic and civil rights leaders.
In April, managers rescinded a 2018 resolution that made the Monday before Chávez’s March 31 birthday a student holiday. They also approved changes to district naming policy, allowing the board to initiate a renaming process without the formal petition previously required, and adopted a resolution honoring Dolores Huerta, a labor leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers.
But managers paused over whether Esperanza fit the district’s naming policy — a question raised after resident Fedencio Medellin urged the board to choose a name with a more direct connection to Diamond Hill.
Medellin told managers he believed Esperanza referred to “Esperanza Rising,” a children’s novel about a young Mexican immigrant. He asked managers to consider naming the campus after his brother, Marine Cpl. Jesus Martin Antonio Medellin, who he said grew up in Diamond Hill and died in 2003 while serving in the military.
“My request is consideration to name the school after someone that means something to the community, not a fictional character,” Medellin said.
The Marine was honored with the USMC Marty Medellin Memorial Plaza at Boswell High School. Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD says Medellin, a 2000 Boswell graduate, was the first soldier from Tarrant County killed in the line of duty during the Iraq campaign.
Manager Rosa Maria Berdeja later moved to table the item until June 9 because the recommended name did not appear to fit the district’s naming policy. Schools are named only after recognized pioneers, prominent people, historical places, streets, subdivisions or other geographic locations.
“I don’t believe that we would be able to approve this because it’s not consistent with local board policy,” Berdeja said. “And so we would either have to suspend or have the principal present an alternate name.”
Manager Luis Galindo pushed back on the idea that Esperanza should be viewed as a fictional name.
“Esperanza means hope,” Galindo said. “We’re naming an elementary school hope.”
Galindo said the board’s naming subcommittee told the campus community that families, students and staff would select the new name.
“We made a representation to them that we would honor the name they gave us, and I think we need to stand by that,” Galindo said.
Still, district lawyers Cynthia Rincon and Sid Pounds raised a similar concern to Berdeja’s. Esperanza would be difficult to approve under the district’s existing naming criteria, they said.
Manager Laurie George said the board could suspend the policy for this specific renaming.
“In honor of the families in the community,” George said. “We acknowledged their wishes and we listened to their wishes.”
The district will use money from property sales approved Tuesday to start replacing the campus marquee, signage and letterhead while also completing campus beautification work over the summer, Superintendent Peter Licata said.
For Galindo, the name carried a broader message for a campus and district now operating under state-appointed leadership and trying to rebuild trust around improving student outcomes.
“Very appropriate for the times, very appropriate,” Galindo said. “Esperanza — hope — is what we need right now.”
Disclosure: FWISD manager Pete Geren leads the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. FWISD manager Laurie George is a member of the Report’s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
