On May 11, the Bakersfield City School District (BCSD) announced that it would begin the process of renaming Cesar Chavez Elementary School and invited students, employees, and community members to recommend a new name for the school.
The public submission window will be open until May 22, and the Board of Education will make the final decision.
“The Board of Education has emphasized the importance of ensuring that the school’s future identity continues to honor and reflect the legacy, contributions, values, and enduring impact of the community it serves, especially farmworkers and agricultural families who have helped shape and strengthen our community,” the district wrote in its announcement.
This process comes at a time when school renaming decisions have increasingly become part of broader debates over history and erasure, representation, and public memory.
Local historian and Bakersfield College (BC) professor Oliver Rosales said the renaming effort should be approached carefully and with deliberate thought. He referenced the student involvement in Delano, California, where young people and students were the ones to organize petitions around renaming Cesar Chavez High School.
“I thought that was good because it was organic, it was bottom-up. It wasn’t being forced down their throats,” Rosales commented.
Rosales went on to say that distinction matters when districts like BCSD begin formal naming processes.
“My opinion is that there needs to be deliberate thought about this. A lot of times these decisions happen quickly, especially when there’s backlash or pressure,” he said. “But in a place like Kern County, where the farmworker movement is such a foundational part of local history, it really matters how you approach what replaces a name.”
Rosales pointed to Kern County’s central role in the United Farm Workers movement, stating that the region has no shortage of individuals whose contributions have not been widely recognized.
“I think in Bakersfield and Kern County, we sometimes default towards the most recognizable figures, but there are so many organizers, activists, and community members who actually built and sustained the movement,” Rosales said. “A lot of those names are not in public memory, but they should absolutely be considered.”
Consequently, Rosales warned that renaming efforts can unintentionally flatten history if communities are not careful about what gets lost in the process.
“The danger is erasure. Once you remove a name, you’re not just replacing signage. You’re making a decision about what history is visible to students in the future,” said Rosales.
The farmworker movement itself, he added, should not be reduced to a single narrative focused only on wages or labor disputes.
“It was always more than a labor movement. It wasn’t just about bread-and-butter wages or higher pay,” he said. “It was about dignity. It was about human rights, racial justice, and building coalitions across communities. If you lose that broader framing, you lose what made the movement powerful in the first place.”
BCSD’s naming policy requires that any proposed name must align with Board Policy 300.34, Naming of Facility, by meeting one of the following criteria:
- Individuals, living or deceased, who have made outstanding contributions to the Bakersfield City School District and/or the Bakersfield community,
- Individuals, living or deceased, who are or were local, state, or national figures who have made truly significant contributions to the community, to Kern County, the state, or nation.
- In recognition of the specific geographic area or locales in which the school or building is located
- Authors, poets, historical figures who have attained national prominence in the fields of education, science, the arts, statesmanship, civic leadership, or an early pioneer of Bakersfield, Kern County, or the State of California.
- Former United States Presidents, living or deceased.
One suggestion made by Rosales was that the district take inventory of how public schools already reflect historical figures, and who remains unrepresented in that landscape.
According to him, that reflection should include local civil rights leaders, educators, and farmworker organizers whose contributions shaped Kern County but are not widely memorialized.
For Rosales, the renaming of Cesar Chavez Elementary is not just about one school, but about how public institutions choose to represent their own history over time.
“This is really about how communities decide to remember themselves,” he said. “And I think the most important part is making sure that process is thoughtful, inclusive, and historically grounded.”
When asked what he personally would suggest as a potential name for the school, Rosales said the decision should reflect Kern County’s local history more directly rather than relying on broad symbolic or national figures alone.
He further stated that the Kern County region has its own network of organizers, educators, and movement builders whose contributions are often overlooked.
He referenced several local figures connected to that history, including Ray Gonzalez.
“These are people who were involved in building that movement on the ground,” he said. “They worked in education, in organizing, in community leadership. A lot of those names don’t make it into schools or public spaces, but they absolutely should be part of the conversation.”
Rosales also suggested that naming decisions do not have to be limited to individuals. He pointed to “De Colores,” a song closely associated with the United Farm Workers movement, as an example of how cultural symbols tied to farmworker organizing could also be considered.
All recommendations must be submitted by 4:00 p.m. on May 22. Only one submission is allowed per person. Submissions in English can be done here. And submissions in Spanish can be done here.
