Posted by Robert Woolsey, KCAW | Feb 9, 2021
School board member Blossom Teal-Olsen said that social media comments and email following last month’s unanimous decision to rename Baranof Elementary for a significant local cultural educator had allowed her to see clearly “the lines within the community.” She added “There is a very dangerous undertone of racial backlash of our decision.”
The Sitka School Board is not backing away from its decision to ask the Sitka Tribe of Alaska to help rename Baranof Elementary School, despite some public opposition.
Board members last week (2-3-21) decided to stick with their original plan of identifying a “significant local cultural educator” to name the school for, rather than bow to public pressure that struck some board members as racist.
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The Sitka School Board recently decided to send the question of the name change to the Sitka Tribe, in hopes of identifying a “significant local cultural educator.”
The hardest part about renaming the Baranof Elementary School will be who to name it for.
At their last meeting on January 6, Sitka School Board members reported that their email was running near 100-percent in favor of naming the building after someone other than the 18th-Century fur trader who, as the first chief manager of the Russian-American Company, was the de facto governor of the Russian colony in North America.
Alexander Baranov’s role in history won’t ever be unwritten. But in her testimony, former school board member Dionne Brady-Howard explained why honoring him with an elementary school remains a bad idea.
There was interest in changing the name of Baranof Elementary even before the last summer’s demonstrations to remove a statue of the 18th Century fur trader from in front of Harrigan Centennial Hall. Although Alexander Baranov was a major figure in Alaska’s colonial history, former Sitka School Board member Dionne Brady-Howard considers him ruthless. “He would have annihilated my ancestors if he had been able to,” she said. (KCAW file photo)
Sitka’s Baranof Elementary School appears likely to have its name changed but what that new name will be, no one is quite sure yet.
The Sitka School Board recently decided to send the question of the name change to the Sitka Tribe, in hopes of identifying a “significant local cultural educator.”
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