User talk:Ynizcw/Archive 1
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Archie Williams High School name change
Ynizcw, I will be adding a new section to address the considerable controversy the renaming process caused in our community. It will be titled "Controversy Surrounding the Name Change."
To give you an idea of what this will cover I'm posting a comment from Dick Spotswood in today's IJ. I do not expect pushback from you as in deleting my corrections to SFD's life.
Tamalpais Union High School District has a culture that tends to shun transparency and public collaboration. The agency managing the five central and southern Marin secondary schools just concluded a fiasco over dumping Sir Francis Drake’s name from the high school in San Anselmo. That rough experience may have finally taught the board that there’s a better way of running these schools.
Earlier this month, Tam Union administrators unceremoniously discontinued one of its popular student sports: mountain bike racing.
Biking coaches from Tamalpais, Redwood and Archie Williams (formerly Drake) were informed by the Tam Union administration that, effective July 1, the schools’ popular mountain biking clubs could no longer be associated with the three high schools.
Now, after blowback from the 84 boys and girls on the three mountain bike racing teams, their coaches, parents and alumni, Tam Union honchos pulled back and will reevaluate their decision.
That’s the right approach and ideally will see the district and its board adopt a permanent new open and collaborative approach to all their actions.
It wasn’t about money. As past team coach and director of Fairfax’s Mountain Bike Hall of Fame Otis Guy explains, mountain bike racing is a “club sport.” As such, it’s self-funding and needs no revenue from district sources. The district based its decision on liability concerns. If 100% athletic safety is their criteria, its curious Tam Union didn’t suggest discontinuing football.
If the district’s administrators and the Tam Union board had always done the public’s business in public and understood the benefits of achieving community consensus — as they are finally doing with the mountain bike racing community — much grief would have been avoided over the Drake renaming.