Dallas ISD Board President Joe Carreón’s District 8 includes the former Cesar Chavez Learning Center, now East Dallas Elementary School. Photo by Renee Umsted.
Dallas ISD Board of Trustees approved changing the name of Cesar Chavez Learning Center to East Dallas Elementary School at last month’s meeting.
This will be in effect for the upcoming school year at the Old East Dallas campus at the corner of North Carroll and Ross Avenues.
The board reportedly started considering the name change after sexual abuse and rape allegations were lodged against Cesar Chavez, the school’s namesake and civil rights leader, in The New York Times.
All board members at the meeting voted in favor of the change, but District 3 Trustee Dan Micciche, whose territory includes areas in Lake Highlands and east of White Rock Lake, raised a point about the name.
“The name ‘East Dallas Elementary School’ is likely to cause confusion because in my part of town, which we call East Dallas, we have lots of East Dallas elementary schools,” Micciche said during the meeting. “In fact, when we talk about them collectively, we talk about the East Dallas elementary schools. And ironically, even though this location is in what once was East Dallas, it’s now called Old East Dallas. And so when people refer to East Dallas, they’re not referring to the Ross Avenue corridor. They’re referring to the White Rock Lake area of Dallas.”
Despite this, the board member still agreed that the change needed to happen.
“I think we can live with it,” Micciche concluded.
Board President Joe Carreón, whose District 8 includes Cesar Chavez Learning Center, said the effort to change the school’s name was an extensive process executed by those connected to the campus.
“This East Dallas community decided to take pride in its East Dallas historic roots and bring this name forward,” Carreón said during the meeting.
