Students Opposed as Board Names School for McAuliffe

Two weeks ago, as the nation mourned the loss of the shuttle Challenger astronauts, the Los Alamitos Unified School District board decided a memorial was in order.

So the board decided to make Los Alamitos the first district in Orange County and one of the first in the nation to bestow the name of Christa McAuliffe on one of its schools, in honor of the New Hampshire teacher who was aboard the ill-fated Challenger.

“We had some very emotional discussion,” said Virginia Wilson, president of the five-member school board.

But the board’s vote on the Christa McAuliffe Middle School on Tuesday night produced a different--and unexpected--kind of emotional outpouring from a delegation of about 30 students who oppose the new name.

One reason for their dissent, the students said, was that they felt excluded from the decision-making process. Another was that they thought it unfair to name the school after only one of the seven astronauts who died Jan. 28.

“We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” said Randy Chalawsky, 13, an eighth-grader at Pine Middle School, who brought along a petition signed by 830 students who share his view. “Christa McAuliffe was a great educator, and she had a great deal of courage. But she was just one of seven. Perhaps if we had seven schools, we could name a school for each astronaut.”

Kim Levin, 12, of Oak Middle School, asked the board to consider letting the students have a referendum on the new name. She noted that in December about 200 students had submitted suggested names for the new school. “None of the students put down Christa McAuliffe (as a suggested name). The astronauts reached for the stars. Why don’t we honor all, and not just one?”

Over the spirited, but polite, objections of the dissenting students, the board reaffirmed on a 4-1 vote its informal decision two weeks ago to name a school in honor of Christa McAuliffe.

At issue is a name for Pine Middle School, which will absorb the students of Oak Middle School next September after Oak Middle School is closed. The board months ago announced that it wanted a new name for Pine when the student bodies merged, but had not found one yet.

The board agreed on using McAuliffe’s name. “Unfortunately, we forgot to put the matter in the form of a resolution and vote on it,” Wilson said. “That is why it was on our agenda tonight.”

Jeanne Murphy, 13, of Oak Middle School, asked the board to allow students to vote on the new name. “Some of us feel the name was picked without our participation,” she said.

But school district Assistant Supt. David Bishop told the school board that students had been given a chance earlier in the school year to suggest names for the newly merged school and only about 200 of the eligible 2,000 middle school children took part.

He said the six most common names suggested by students were Los Alamitos Middle School, Cottenwood Middle School, Redwood Middle School, Los Arboles Middle School, Rancho Los Amigos Middle School, and Los Amigos Middle School.

“The committee that processed these suggestions wasn’t excited about any of them,” Bishop said. “As I recall, the board didn’t particularly like any, either.”

School board members then explained to the students that their choice two weeks ago to name the school after Christa McAuliffe was a difficult one, but they believed a sound one. “We agonized over it,” said board president Wilson. “We, as elected officials, have to make decisions that are difficult, and we have to make decisions that are best in the long run, and I feel we have done that.”

Wilson noted that two weeks ago she was the only board member who wanted the name Challenger Middle School, rather than Christa McAuliffe Middle School. She said she was therefore voting against the motion on Tuesday night, but that she thought the board made the proper decision.

School board members thanked the opposing students for showing up, being polite and “acting as good citizens.”