{"id":27598,"date":"2018-01-23T15:21:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T15:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27598"},"modified":"2018-01-23T15:21:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T15:21:06","slug":"aisd-chokes-given-chance-make-big-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27598","title":{"rendered":"AISD chokes when given a chance to make a big statement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

I had high hope that Amarillo’s elected school board of trustees would do the right thing when it decided to consider changing the name of one of their elementary schools.<\/p>\n

Then a slim majority of the board dashed my hope. Sigh!<\/em><\/p>\n

The Amarillo Independent School District board voted 4-3 to alter the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary School to, um, Lee Elementary School.<\/em><\/p>\n

There had been considerable community chatter about a school that serves a large African-American student base carrying the name of a Confederate army general who led forces seeking to allow states to retain the enslavement of human beings.<\/p>\n

Many of those voices came to the school board meeting Monday night to be heard. They spoke out. A large majority of the voices gathered in a packed AISD administration building meeting room spoke against “Robert E. Lee Elementary School.”<\/p>\n

The non-decision by the AISD board is disappointing. It borders on shameful.<\/p>\n

Trustee James Allen — the lone African-American on the board — had pitched a perfectly reasonable option: Change the name to Park Hills Elementary School, which would be consistent with AISD’s current building-naming policy of identifying schools with the community they serve.<\/p>\n

Did the board follow Allen’s lead? Nope. They wanted to “compromise” by dropping the Confederate traitor, er, general’s<\/em> first name and middle initial from the building’s name.<\/p>\n

As if that would wipe away the connection between a local school and the darkest, bloodiest period in our nation’s history? Please.<\/em><\/p>\n

The national discussion about these name changes had found its way to Amarillo. I hoped our community’s elected school board would take up the cudgel and declare that it, too, would stand on the right side of history.<\/p>\n

Sadly, AISD did nothing of the sort. Its board choked.<\/p>\n

I’m out!<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had high hope that Amarillo’s elected school board of trustees would do the right thing when it decided to consider changing the name of one of their elementary schools. Then a slim majority of the board dashed my hope. Sigh! The Amarillo Independent School District board voted 4-3 to alter the name of Robert … Continue reading AISD chokes when given a chance to make a big statement<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6251,9],"tags":[7240,1014,3808,7248,4286],"class_list":["post-27598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-news","category-local-news","tag-charlottesville-riot","tag-civil-war","tag-racism","tag-robert-e-lee","tag-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27599,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598\/revisions\/27599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}