During the 02/08/2021 Appleton Area School District Board of Education meeting, the Board considered, as an information item, the proposal to rename Lincoln Elementary to the Ronald C. Dunlap Elementary School – Home of the Lincoln Lions.
Per Superintendent Judy Baseman, Ron Dunlop died October 28, 2019. In February of 2020, a team made up of community members, City of Appleton staff, and the Appleton Area School District came together to discuss how best to honor Ron Dunlap’s legacy. Throughout this planning process, community members along with former students, families, and staff shared how Ron positively impacted our community and the lives of everyone who knew him. He did this through sharing kindness and wisdom, a calm yet strong presence, and deeply held values. Ron always listened intently and always found the good in people. He appreciated multiple perspectives, even on tough issues, and gave so much of his time and energy to help others by volunteering on multiple boards and being involved in several organizations and nonprofits. Ron also helped to pave the way for diversity and inclusion efforts, not only in the school environment but in our community and across our state as well.
For those reasons the planning team strongly believes that Lincoln Elementary, the school he was a principal of for 16 years, should be renamed. They believe doing so will honor a great person, a respected educational and community leader, and a volunteer mentor and role model and will also carry his message of dignity and respect through generations of future students families staff and community members.
Greg Hartjes stated that Board of Education policy 940 allows for the naming of AASD facilities by a majority vote of the entire Board of Education. The policy also states that a district facility may be named for an individual person and that person should be of exemplary moral character and have made an outstanding contribution to education, humanity, or the district’s community, have displayed outstanding leadership, or be a person of historical significance. The committee felt that Ronald C Dunlap meets the criteria for this honor.
William McClone, the principal of Lincoln Elementary, stated that about a year ago he presented the name change idea to Lincoln’s staff, and the staff supported the plan. He said there were tears of joy and appreciation shed that night. They still have about a dozen staff members who worked under Ron when Ron was a principal, and those staff members were very excited about changing the name. He also presented the idea at a PTO meeting and those parents were overwhelmingly in support of it as well. He stated that he recently presented this potential name change to his colleagues and an elementary principals meeting and that group was very supportive as well.
He said that at Lincoln they are excited to honor Ron with this name change, but they’re also excited to keep their tradition of “the Lincoln Lions”.
After his statement they opened the floor up for discussion.
Jim Bowman thought it was a wonderful idea.
Deb Truyman said that it seems like a topic the public would have a lot of opinions on and she wondered if they could somehow have a public listening session so they could hear from community members before the Board makes a decision.
Barry O’Connor wondered if there was going to be a newspaper story on this that might include a solicitation of correspondence to the Board so that people could write in like they currently do for other public comment.
Deb wanted a way for them to speak their opinions vs putting it in written form.
Jim wondered if she anticipated objections.
Deb didn’t know. She thought there might be some, although not anything that she knew of. She thought renaming a school was a big step and she thought that the people should have a chance to speak.
Kay Eggert said that in some districts, any letter that is received is actually read aloud. It could be a lot of letters and a lot of reading. She has been summarizing the correspondences but some people listening may not be satisfied with her summaries, although she tries to be objective. If someone feels strongly about an issue how can they accommodate that? They are still in the process of figuring out how they can conduct in person meetings and would not be able to do that by the next Board meeting on 02/22/2021.
Superintendent Baseman thought an hour long listening session ahead of the 02/22/2021 meeting might be appropriate. She said there are 25-30 community members who have been a part of the process who, given the opportunity, would love to be able to share their thoughts, but they could open it up to others also.
Deb suggested that if a listening session didn’t happen that she would ask people to call her with thoughts. To her renaming a school is a big step, and she would appreciate hearing more thoughts and opinions. She then questioned if it was a big step, because it seemed like a big step to her.
Kay Eggert said that nationally there are obviously some efforts to rename some buildings but renaming Lincoln Elementary is about honoring someone vs. dishonoring someone. She thought there would be opinions on both sides and she thought it would make sense that they would try to hear those voices.
Deb said she understood Ron was the principal of Lincoln for 16 years and contributed to the community in other ways also, and wondered if there was another potential way to honor him in a more community-based situation.
Barry O’Connor thought they should invite people to communicate with them, but he wasn’t sure if an hour long listening session would be consistent with what they’ve been doing. He said he does read everything that comes in.
Barry then stated, “Personally, I think that Ron Dunlap would be happy to have a…be on a, on a, name of a building with Abraham Lincoln’s name on it too, and I suspect that Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t mind it one bit either to have Ron’s name on the, on the name of the building with him.”
Bill McClone said he thought that was the beauty behind it. They keep the tradition of “Home of the Lincoln Lions” but honor Ron at the same time.
Barry mentioned that, on top of it, Ron was the president of the Lion’s club, so every base was covered.
Deb continued to press for some kind of live listening session because things can get lost in writing.
Gary Jahnke thought the listening session was a good idea. The problem is if people get allowed 3 minutes to speak and they have an hour, that’s only 20 people. Even if all of those were opposed for some reason, there are still people in favor of it happening. He thought that they should encourage communication but not get hung up on the listening session because of its constrictions. Sometimes people like writing because it does allow individuals to gather their thoughts. He thought they all agreed that they should listen, but what’s the best way to handle it?
Kris Sauter also wondered if they limited it to an hour but more people wanted to speak how would they handle that. Would they need to open it up for more time? She also agreed that the Board reads the letters they are sent and that they would “take that under advisement” as well.
Deb was concerned that if AASD is starting to look for more community partnerships in other areas as well as looking down the road toward a referendum would the community have the perception that AASD only asks for the community’s opinion when they want the community’s opinion. She was not dismissing any of Ron Dunlap’s accomplishments. People in the education world in Appleton know him, but Deb wanted to know what the community feels? Is AASD going to ask the community for their opinion when AASD wants their opinion but not ask their opinion when they don’t want it? [I thought that was a good question, myself.]
Gary asked if she thought email is not an effective way to gather opinions. The community has that opportunity right now to send email.
Jim thought that getting the pulse of the community is always a great thing, but the school district has 80,000-90,000 people in it. To him a verbal listening session would limit the input they would get. 20 or 30 people during a listening session would not leave him feeling that he has a sense of the community at all. It might give him a sense of the people who feel most strongly about the issue, but he didn’t think it takes the pulse of this community. He thought there was merit in a listening session. They always take a chunk of time, but they are wonderful things. However, he seemed to prefer people writing. That way they could send in a sentence or an entire page, and if there are 1,000 people out there who feel strongly the Board can sense all 1,000.
Deb understood the limits of a listening session. She just didn’t want to have a vote and walk out and have people feel like “Why did you do that”, for whatever reason. She did not know Ron that well, and she recognized that they can call it the Home of the Lincoln Lions but they would still be losing the Lincoln School part of it. She would appreciate some community input about it.
Barry would like to hear more also but he recognized that some people people would support this change and others would oppose it either because it was Ron Dunlap, or because it’s changing the Lincoln name, or making it different, or it’s making a statement of diversity in our community and some people don’t like that. He stated that he was on the side that says it is a great statement for our community. A couple years ago the Board authorized a Martin Luther King Day celebration. He hesitated and eventually saw the light, and it’s been a good statement for this community in terms of welcoming diversity. And so he thinks you’re gonna hear all of that and he’s glad they will and he would like to have it filter through their respective perceptions of this or come up with a vote.
Kay asked if there was more information coming on this.
Bill McClone said that at the 02/22/2021 Board of Education meeting there would be a presentation with some community members who have come together to support the idea. This presentation would give a little more background about Ron and his involvement both as a principal and as a well respected community member in the local community and state.
Deb asked if they would encourage people to send their thoughts in before the 22nd and then let them know that that presentation would be given on the 22nd.
Barry thought the community needs to know that this name change is being considered. That was one of the purposes of having this as an information item for the 02/08/2021 meeting.
Kay wanted to know if Board members were thinking of this as a referendum on the matter, such as, if they get so many letters of support for the change or not. She looks forward to the presentation, but she wants to focus on the fact that this is about honoring Ron. She said it’s good to hear what the community is thinking but she would not expect that their feedback would be like taking a vote.
Deb reiterated that she would just like to hear some other aspect. There are people who might not know what Ron Dunlap accomplished and she was worried it would come across that they were changing Lincoln School. She would like to take as much of the political aspect out of it as they can by having people be informed, and just having this discussion ahead of time might help people be more informed.
There was then a brief discussion between Judy and Bill about publicizing this information about this potential action on the Lincoln and District website. (It has been published.)
Bill mentioned that they planned to get the information out to the larger Lincoln population either through a robocall or on their school website. He wanted it to go before the Board of Education first before they broadcasted it.
Kay wanted to know if they were going to start their 02/22/2021 Board of Education meeting early for the special presentation on Ron.
Judy said they planned to do the presentation as part of the meeting–not before. And reiterated that they would publicize a call for public input on the district website.
Barry said that it should be presented as an item for consideration not as a fait accompli.
Although not determined at the time, the public is encouraged to submit their public comments no later than 4 pm on 02/19/2021.
[Now, for a little editorializing. There was little need for me to recap this section of the meeting. I could have just linked to the public notice on the District website asking for public comment and given a brief overview of the facts. I took the time to recap it because some people might find that the discussion gives some insight into where the different board members are coming from. But beyond that, I think it is illustrative of the Board’s mindset and priorities. This very vigorous and involved discussion about renaming an elementary school followed on the heels of the revelation that Fs and incompletes by high schoolers were shockingly higher this year as compared to previous years. When presented that information, 3 board members chose to make no comment and the other 3 board members made what I viewed as cursory comments asked minor questions. I don’t think it is crazy, at this point, to be asking what the Board’s priorities are when revelations of widespread student failure are met with less vigorous discussion than the prospect of renaming one of their elementary schools.]
View full 02/08/2021 Board of Education meeting here: https://youtu.be/7nkXWOQH6Ac
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