I’m glad the Colts Neck, New Jersey, school board rejected a proposal last week to rename Conover Road Primary School after President Trump, who does not exude the qualities that I would like young people to emulate: curiosity, kindness and tolerance.
Now I hope the board renames it after someone else. Not after a road. Or a creek. Or a hill.
That’s been the trend for the past two decades or more. We’re afraid that naming schools after people will cause controversy, especially if we learn something unsavory about them. The safest move is to pick a local geographic feature, like a river or mountain, or just to name the school after your community. In Anytown, USA, kids can go to Anytown School.
Yawn.
The point of school is to learn. And when we decide to name schools after places rather than people, we forsake the chance to teach our students – and ourselves – about our past.
We also evade the important educational conversations that happen when we discover that our heroes were deeply flawed. How do we take the measure of a person? And when should their misdeeds make us remove their names from our schools and other public facilities?
Witness the recent debates surrounding farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, following revelations that he is accused of sexually abusing two girls and raping his fellow activist Dolores Huerta. Several states moved quickly to rename Cesar Chavez Day, which has been celebrated on March 31. And some school districts canceled their plans to commemorate it later this month.
What about the 86 schools in 14 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia that are named after Chavez? I’m sure many of those schools wish they had named their buildings after an orchard or a lake.
I’m glad they didn’t. Now their communities will have to reckon with the hard truth that a great advocate for social justice can also engage in horribly unjust behavior.
Thomas Jefferson wrote our most famous tribute to human freedom, the Declaration of Independence, but he also fathered children with a woman he enslaved. Should the 300-odd schools named for Jefferson change their names, too?
Or, to take more recent examples, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton both had sexual liaisons with young White House interns. Clinton lied about his affair, which led to his impeachment. Should their names be taken off schools, as well?
And let’s not forget the schools named after Confederate generals and politicians. After the George Floyd murder in 2020, at least 59 Confederate-themed schools changed their names. But 340 schools in 21 states still bear the names of Confederate figures, according to a 2025 story in Education Week. And Midland recently restored the name of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to two schools that had dropped his name in 2020.
I don’t think our schools should celebrate people who took up arms against the United States in defense of slavery. But I’m also pleased we are debating the broader question of how we should think about the history and legacy of racism in our country. And that would be less likely if schools were named after local landmarks or received bland designations like Achievement Academy, another go-to move by gun-shy school leaders.
They don’t have to be afraid. Sure, some of the people we choose to honor might turn out to be less than honorable. But we can replace them with others. And, most of all, we can all learn something from the process.
That’s what happened in my hometown of Philadelphia in 2022, when an elementary school bearing the name of Andrew Jackson – who presided over the displacement and death of thousands of Native Americans – became the Fanny Jackson Coppin School. One of the first Black women in America to earn a college degree, Coppin graduated from Oberlin College in 1865. She then moved to Philadelphia and taught at the Institute for Colored Youth, now Cheyney University, and later became its principal.
“Our students have been excited learning about who Fanny Jackson Coppin was,” declared the school’s principal at an unveiling ceremony in 2022 announcing the new name. “We are excited to see how our students invest more in our school community with this change.”
By contrast, Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Philadelphia was renamed Castor Gardens, after the surrounding neighborhood. I understand the desire to drop Wilson, who praised the Ku Klux Klan and segregated the federal workforce. But the new name? Nobody is going to get excited – or educated – by that.
After Colts Neck rejected the bid to name Conover Road Primary School after President Trump, one community member suggested that it be named after a local celebrity like Bruce Springsteen or Queen Latifah. I’d prefer Revolutionary War hero Joshua Huddy or theater critic Alexander Woollcott, who also lived in the township.
But anything would be better than naming it after a road. That won’t take us anywhere we want to go.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.
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