By John Geluardi
After inciting student vandalism, protecting a parent who vandalized school property, intimidating community members and misappropriating thousands of taxpayer dollars on a project yet to be approved, the Tamalpais Union High School District has settled down to carry out a slightly more decorous process of renaming of Sir Francis Drake High School.
In September, the High School empaneled the Drake Leadership Council (DLC), an 18-member council that includes teachers, students, parents and Drake Principal Liz Seabury. The DLC is tasked with several objectives in changing the school name. The first is deciding to actually change the school name at an estimated cost of $430,000, which administrators claim will be paid for by contributions and grants. If the DLC decides to move forward with the renaming, the next step will be choosing the new name from a list of hundreds of suggestions.
The DLC may take the fist step at their next meeting on Thursday, Nov. 19. The DLC has met four times since Sept. 9. The meetings have included presentations from stakeholder groups including Coastal Miwok representatives, an alumni group and a racial equity panel. In addition a clinical therapist who specializes in multicultural counseling offered the DLC members some guidance on their decision process.
Should the DLC choose a new name, it will be presented to Superintendent Tara Taupier and the final decision will be made by the Tamalpais Union School District Board of Trustees who are expected to rubberstamp any new name the DLC brings forward.
The name Sir Francis Drake became controversial recently because the British naval officer was involved in two slave trading voyages early in his career and according to Drake teachers that fact causes physical pain to students of color, particularly indigenous students. But opponents to the renaming say Drake is a symbol of redemption because he renounced the slave trade at 23 years old and became a staunch advocate against slavery. In fact, when Drake arrived in Marin County in 1579, his crew included freed black slaves and all crewman were equally compensated, according to Drake historian John Sugden. And, according to Sugden, Drake’s crew was more diverse than the high school’s current faculty.
Thus far, the renaming process has been characterized by secrecy, heavy-handed tactics that include faculty incited vandalism, abuse of the law and district policy. There has also been public verbal abuse and intimidation of community members and the undisclosed expenditures of large sums of taxpayer funds prior to the project’s approval.
By contrast, the DLC meetings have been businesslike and run efficiently, often under the leadership of impressively dedicated and earnest students though Drake teachers and Principal Seabury have drastically restricted what information the students and parents can review as they prepare for their decision, which will have a significant impact on the school’s budget and curriculum.
The district’s tactics have created so much controversy and unnecessary division in the community, school administrators brought in Lagleva to speak with the DLC at its meeting on October 29. Lagleva offered the DLC possible pathways to think through their pending decision on the controversial name change.
“I don’t profess to have any answers,” Lagleva said in a solicitous voice at the DLC meeting. “I only give perspective.”
Lagleva suggested that DLC members try to shift their understanding of the issue away from history and think more about personal and community values. “You need to get to the core of who you are as individuals, as a group, as a system,” Lagleva told Site Council members. “History is important to look at, but we can all agree that there are different interpretations and revisions of history depending on which lense you’re looking through.”
Lagleva added that decisions like the one the DLC is wrestling with will likely be decided by the institution, (the Tamalpais Union High School District) that is overseeing the process which means one group or another will be upset. But if things are carried out in a fair manner, it’s the best possibility of heeling community divisions after the decision. “If the process is as clean and as intentional and as transparent as it can be, you will arrive at a place that will reduce the risk of future discord,” Lagleva said.
Lagleva said he was neutral in the debate though he did reminded DLC members that a name change will only be a gesture. “It’s a symbolic choice about what the name represents,” Lagleva said. “A name isn’t going to change anything in terms of achievement.”
The race-based achievement gap, is a sore spot for the Tamalpais Union High School District and Drake teachers. According to the 2019 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress test, there are huge, districtwide disparities in student proficiency in math and literacy standards. In all district schools, 58 percent of students met or exceeded statewide math standards in 2019.
When the test results are broken down to racial groups, the realities are disturbing. Asian students received the highest scores with 64 percent meeting or exceeding state math standards and whites scoring 61 percent. Only 35 percent of Hispanic students met standards for math. African American students fared the worst with only 18 percent scoring at, or exceeding, state standards.
There are many reasons for the discrepancies in student achievement according to a 2000 Carnegie Corporation study. Socioeconomic conditions are a big contributor, but most factors are related to teaching behaviors. Teacher shortcomings include inabilities to recognize struggling students, racism, internalized beliefs about student abilities, insensitivities to student challenges, low expectations and teachers’ inability or unwillingness to self-reflect.
These are not insurmountable obstacles. Nonetheless the district’s gap in achievement have been consistent for years. Sir Francis Drake High School’s test results are similar to county averages, However, as Drake considers spending an estimated $430,000 on a symbolic gesture, the DLC should consider if the time and money spent on the name change project is of best value to students, teachers and the community. But the DLC has only minimally discussed the financial implications of the name change. There has been no discussion of funding academic programs or self-awareness training for teachers that might help close the achievement gap.
Teachers ignoring the achievement gap while instead pursuing expensive name changes has also been an issue in San Francisco where Mayor London Breed issued a statement that chastised teachers for creating a distraction about proposed school name changes while neglecting their students as they fall further behind in developing their academic skills.
Breed wrote in an October statement that the city provided the San Francisco Unified School District with $15 million from the city’s general fund for support during the pandemic and there was an expectation that the money would be used to help reopen the schools. But teachers chose to pursue school name changes, which hurt students, particularly students of color and their parents who rely on public schools to lift young people out of poverty.
“And now, in the midst of the this once in a century challenge, to hear that the District is focusing energy and resources on renaming schools – schools they haven’t even reopened – is offensive,” Breed wrote. “But the fact that our kids aren’t in school is what’s driving inequity in our City. Not the name of a school.”
Community members are eager for the DLC to settle the name change issue. But they aren’t expecting a fair outcome. Community members have been called “racists” and “white supremacists” at public meetings and in emails from members of the Drake administration.
At last the October DLC meeting, Lagleva closed his comments with a final suggestion for a decision-making framework, “It’s important to think about who benefits, who pays and who decides.”
For many community members who oppose the name change, those questions have already been answered.
The next meeting of the Drake Leadership Council is this Thursday, Nov. 19 at 4 pm. There will be an opportunity to address the DLC. Please see the Sir Francis Drake High School calendar for details.
The Braying Dog 
