Los Banos school board rethinks junior high names

After establishing a nearly 20-member naming committee, having it whittle 53 name suggestions down to four and contemplating the final choices for a month, the Los Banos Unified School District board of trustees is considering scrapping plans to use any of the proposed names for the new junior high school.

District officials are instead working on a plan to rename Los Banos Junior High, on San Luis Street, Pacheco Junior High. Under the plan, the name Los Banos Junior High will be given to the new junior high school being built on Prairie Springs Drive.

Superintendent Steve Tietjen said the new names would correspond with the attendance boundary lines for the junior highs’ namesakes, Los Banos and Pacheco high schools. Therefore every student attending Pacheco Junior High would advance to Pacheco High and all Los Banos Junior High students would be slated to attend Los Banos High.

Carolina Moreno, principal of the new school, headed the naming committee composed of the district’s elementary school principals and parents of fifth-graders. Moreno said she hopes committee members are not offended by the school board’s action.

The committee, which was formed through the district following the same process it used to get community input for other schools like Mercey Springs Elementary School and Pacheco High, met twice and forwarded four names to the school board – Creekside Junior High, Memorial Junior High, Badger Flat Junior High and Foothill Junior High.

Each name had local significance. However, Paul Enos, assistant superintendent over secondary education, said some board members expressed unhappiness with the choices. Enos explained at the Aug. 13 school board meeting why the Pacheco and Los Banos names were not forwarded to the board of trustees.

“There were two reasons that wasn’t brought forth by the committee, one was they were given the task of naming the new school, not to rename the old school. Two, one of the pieces in board policy says that we are not going to name a school a name that’s going to cause confusion with another school site. Obviously for a period of time, for a few years at least, if we named the new school Los Banos Junior High we would have some confusion,” Enos said.

Trustee Dennis Areias said the school board picked out the Los Banos and Pacheco Junior High names years ago.

“A little over five years, perhaps longer than that, when we started looking at plans for the junior high that was exactly the mindset,” Areias said. “You then have rivals at ballgames. You have two schools on one side of town and you have the others on the other side of town.”

He said school board members have even considered having a few elementary schools be designated as feeder schools specific to the Los Banos or Pacheco schools.

“The majority of your students would know in kindergarten what junior high and high school they were going to go to, and it made perfect sense,” Areias said.

The school board has not addressed the cost of changing Los Banos Junior High’s color scheme, mascot or signs. The board has also not discussed the expense of purchasing new apparel for students and teachers.

The district is asking for the public’s input on the new plan.

This story was originally published August 23, 2015 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Los Banos school board rethinks junior high names."