Dear Board of Ed
Dear BOE,
I appreciate your consideration for modernizing the name of the Columbus Magnet School. As an alumni of the school and as a current parent of the school I feel that the name no longer represents the school and its values. Christopher Columbus was an explorer of the medieval times who we have discovered more and more controversial history about as the years have gone by. It was there, in a school bearing his name, that I was able to uncover some more truth about his past. As a child in the 1990s Columbus School itself taught me that he was not the first to discover America and that this was the first of a long string of falsehoods that encapsulated the Columbus story for centuries. I learned over the years there was a lot more negative truth to his story that was left out. So much of this history was suppressed for a very long time from prior generations. Though I feel that history should never be hidden and censored, I also feel that we should commemorate such places as schools, libraries, etc. in the name of someone who was not found to be a massive criminal and someone who doesn’t have such varied controversial history. The school stands for diversity, acceptance, tolerance, and love. One thing we must never tolerate is injustice, torture, and suppression, all values that are associated with Christopher Columbus. I do not support destroying monuments erected, though these things I feel should either have plaques with the broader history - or - that the monuments be relocated to museums that can give more in detail descriptions of the historical account.
I, along with many others, feel that we can improve our communities if we band together and come to some middle road with issues of this type. No, we are not for censoring history, we are simply for updating the name to one that better represents the school. The school was named after a Columbus statue which was placed in front that is no longer there, so at this point there is no firm reason to keep the name affixed as well.
It would be a terrific idea to name the school after longtime principal Arthur Perschino who sadly passed away a couple of years ago. He has a very positive history tied to the school and I feel would be amazing to commemorate him in that manner. His pioneering of the Young Astronauts program got the school recognized by President Bush and the White House in 1987 as the top leader of young astronaut programs in the country at the elementary school level. The reasons to rename this school overwhelm the reasons to keep the old.
Thank you for your time,
Kyle W Baker