The Naming of Schools

[cahwyguy]

If you've ever wondered why I do the highway pages, here's an answer: I love numbering systems and the story behind them. I loved maps and was curious about how state highways got their numbers, and the interest just grew from there. I mention this because the NY Times has a really neat article on how they number their schools. New York is pretty

Comments

[talonvaki]

I was right with you on the naming of California schools until I got to this:

Senior high schools shall be named in honor of deceased Presidents of the United States and other nationally/internationally famous men and women (Board Rule 1003).

Because...well, unless this is a new rule and old high schools are grandfathered in, how do you explain Davis Sr. High, Woodland Sr. High, and Sacramento Sr. High...those aren't named after presidents or anyone else. They're just named after the towns/cities they're located in.

OH! NM, that's just LA Unified. However, the Elementary and Junior Highs in Davis, or Yolo, anyway, seem to follow the same rules. They just diverge at Sr. High.

[cahwyguy]

Senior high schools in LA are often named for communities as well. Examples are Westchester SHS, Venice SHS, University (near UCLA) SHS, Palisades SHS, Van Nuys SHS, Granada Hills SHS, Canoga Park SHS... I could go on and on. This is permitted under item 4: "Where there is a well-established community, a secondary school may also bear the name of the community, provided that it does not conflict with any other school named for the same community (Board Rule 1003)."

Of course, there are some conflicts at that level, but I guess there will always be exceptions.

[mortuus]

In DC, they are named after people, most often famous or locally-recognized African-Americans.

In Utah, they are usually first named after the town they are in (Provo HS in Provo, Orem HS in Orem, Highland ES in Highland), and once you have more than one, the next most popular option is to name them after a mountain or something mountain related (Lone Peak HS, Timpview HS [Timp is short for Timpanogos, one of the mountains], Mountain View HS, Mountain Trails ES, etc.). Since there are more elementary schools, you get a bit more variety, though I've been unable to pinpoint a theme. Some are named after people, though usually local people rather than presidents or someone nationally recognizable (I went to Maeser ES, named after an early Utah educator). Some are named after whatever is around (Meadow ES, Cherry Hill ES, Riverview ES). Some are clearly names someone apparently thought sounded good (an elementary school recently built near my parents is called Legacy ES; there's also a school called Freedom ES).

[dennisthetiger]

For the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, they seem to follow something similar

[fiddlingfrog]

Where I grew up schools were, for the most part, named after the person who donated the land for the building.

[fauxklore]

Our elementary schools were named after the streets they were on. One of the two was later renamed and I believe the person it was named for was the second president of the local school board. Junior high was named after the first president of the local school board. If that sounds provincial, I lived in a place where the streets were named after the people who lived in the corner houses.

My high school was named for the town it was in (which was 8 miles from the town I lived in. We didn't have a local high school and had to contract with another town.)