Asadoorian told GV Wire on Thursday that Chavez had approached her prior to Wednesday’s meeting with the offer to name a building on the campus after Tatarian.
“Luis Chavez … had requested to meet with me to try to strike a deal, which I found highly unusual because city councils should not be entering into school meetings,” Asadoorian said.
Jonasson Rosas said she also included in her motion naming a building for Huerta because residents had expressed support in emails and phone calls for considering the name of the iconic labor leader.
Those calls and emails apparently are in addition to the nominations that were made in the district survey that was released Monday after local news organizations, including GV Wire, submitted a public records request.
Asadoorian said she questions why the School Board even asks for input if it is going to be disregarded.
“The School Board is very aware that they get to do whatever they want. So don’t patronize the public in the future by asking for community input. Just go and do what you want. They have that right,” she said.
When asked by GV Wire after Wednesday’s meeting about the point of having a survey if the School Board ignores the will of the community, Jonasson Rosas said, “It’s not a vote tally in terms of who gets the most votes. Ultimately, as you saw in the board policy, it is up to the discretion of the board to choose the naming of the facilities. And I think it was a good, inclusive group of individuals that are all worthy of recognition.”
Jonasson Rosas would not identify Huerta’s supporters who called and sent emails but said they indicated they had not had an opportunity to participate in the survey.
Francine and Murray Farber
More than a dozen members of GO Public Schools Fresno were on hand for Wednesday’s School Board meeting at Gaston Middle School, asking the School Board to delay the vote and reopen the survey because many parents lack internet access or online prowess.
District spokeswoman Amy Idsvoog detailed the wide variety of communications tools, including emails and press releases, that the district had distributed in multiple languages to alert parents about the survey.
Islas, who made a motion to table the naming decision, said the parents needed time to have input. Her motion, which was not seconded, came after Jonasson Rosas’s motion that was quickly seconded by board president Valerie Davis.
Trustee Claudia Cazares said that if the communication process is flawed, the district needs to address it. But the same process to notify parents has been used up to this point, with no complaints, she said.
And she questioned why past School Boards had not made a greater effort to recognize an Armenian with a school naming. To accuse the current School Board, the first to be a majority of Black and brown people, to be discriminatory and not inclusive is unfair, Cazares said.
But Asadoorian said there were prior efforts to obtain a school naming for Tatarian. Members of the Armenian community were prepared to ask for Tatarian to be the namesake for the new elementary but were told it had been promised for the Farbers. So, they agreed to bow out and wait for the next school, she said. At the time, Asadoorian said, Jonasson Rosas indicated she would support an Armenian name for the next new school.
But then poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s name surfaced and was selected for the new southeast Fresno elementary, Asadoorian said.
The Armenian community believes Tatarian deserves an entire school named after him, Asadoorian said. She said it’s likely the trustees will either name a building after him, in flagrant disregard of the community’s wishes, or name the building after someone else and then say later that the Armenians had their chance but chose not to accept the naming honor.
“So that’s really a concern to us,” Asadoorian said. “We want inclusion and equality, just like has been awarded the Jews, the Blacks, the Latinos. That’s what our hopes are for the future.”