Board approves school names

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By MARGARET REIST / Lincoln Journal Star

Three new schools in Lincoln will carry the names of a poet, a school administrator and a World War II airman, the Lincoln Board of Education decided Tuesday.

But it wasn’t easy.

A committee of three board members and 10 community members recommended the names of former Lincoln Public Schools administrator Phil Schoo, longtime Lincoln High teacher and Tuskegee airman Col. Paul Adams, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.

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A committee of three board members and 10 community members recommended the names of former Lincoln Public Schools administrator Phil Schoo, longtime Lincoln High teacher and Tuskegee airman Col. Paul Adams, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.

A committee of three board members and 10 community members recommended the names of former Lincoln Public Schools administrator Phil Schoo, longtime Lincoln High teacher and Tuskegee airman Col. Paul Adams, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.

Since then, though, some board members not on the committee questioned the process. On Tuesday, two of the committee members addressed the board with their concerns.

Laurie Smith Eskridge and Robin Hadfield said they thought the process was too rushed and they weren’t given an opportunity to review all the nomination letters or see public comment sent to the LPS Web site.

“I do not understand why we were in such a hurry to name buildings that are not even built yet,” Eskridge said. “I do not understand why there was not more public input from the citizens who pay for these buildings to be built.”

 Board member Lillie Larsen expressed similar concerns and suggested that the process be reopened so there would be more chance for public comment.

 But several other board members — and a citizen committee member in a written statement to the board — defended the process.

Committee member Pete Ferguson said in written comments read by board president Don Mayhew that he’d reviewed the nomination letters and talked to people in the community.

Board member Doug Evans, who chaired the committee, said he thinks the concerns are more about the outcome than the process itself.

Two points of discussion have repeatedly come up:

n Opposition to naming a school after Schoo by members of the public, either through comments to the board or the committee. That opposition was countered by board members and some committee members who staunchly supported naming a school after him to honor his service to the community.

n Family members of Arnott Folsom, who sold the land to LPS where the south Lincoln elementary will be built, waged a campaign to have board members name that elementary after him.

The Lincoln Children’s Zoo was named after Folsom until recently, a change endorsed by the family.

But many of those family members, who spoke again Tuesday to the board, said his work in starting the children’s zoo and other service to the community should be honored.

“His family’s been here since 1870,” said Don Brouse, who is married to Folsom’s granddaughter. “He is one of Lincoln Nebraska’s sons. And where I come from, you take care of your own. You honor them, you support them, and you stand beside them, against all odds.”

Board member Keith Prettyman attempted to change the recommendations with an amendment that would have named the south Lincoln elementary after Folsom and the administration building after Schoo.

That was defeated on a 5-2 vote with Larsen voting along with Prettyman in favor of the amendment. The committee’s recommendation passed 5-2, with Prettyman and Larsen voting against it.

Prettyman said his motion was not intended to imply that Folsom was more deserving than others, but that it was a unique opportunity to name the school after the original landowner.

Nor, he said, was it intended to diminish Schoo’s contributions.

But board member Barb Baier said she didn’t think the suggestions from the community to name the administration building after Schoo were meant as a compliment. Some community members who’d made the suggestion were critical of Schoo.

Both Baier and board member Kathy Danek said they believed in the process and that changing it now would overlook others whose nominations were considered.

“I feel confident in the process,” Baier said. “We don’t want to circumvent it.”

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com