SAN ANGELO, Texas — For months, the San Angelo Independent School District has been hosting events and inviting members of the community to engage in conversation surrounding the possible renaming or retention of Robert E Lee Middle School in San Angelo.
On Sept. 15, the district held its last Engaging Equity summit sessions at the West Texas Rehabilitation Center, where locals were able to give comments regarding who should be involved in a possible renaming, what a school should be named after and what the name of a school means to its students, staff and community.
SAISD superintendent carl Dethloff said an advisory council will gather information from all of the Engaging Equity summits, letters and emails sent to the district, and comments made at school board meetings and present key findings to the board of trustees, who will ultimately decide what the next step is: whether it's renaming, retaining, or scheduling more public summits.
"They will plow through the data from all of these events and they will come up with key findings. They are not making a recommendation, they are coming up with key findings from all of this information: your letters, your emails, the summits, the focus groups...any event that we've had that's on our website, they are synthesizing that information and will come up with some key findings in that and present that to our board of trustees as well as they make their decision," Dethloff said.
According to SAISD, on Oct. 8, the advisory council design team will review the data to determine the next steps. On Oct. 19, a proposal on retention or renaming action will be taken to the board of trustees for consideration.