LAKEVIEW — What's in a namesake? One Lakeview school is about to find out.
Agassiz Elementary School is surveying its community to see if a name change is in order after parents and community members have expressed concern over the spotty history of the school's namesake.
A survey due Monday lays out the plans for a potential change, should a majority of respondents recommend the switch.
"Agassiz Elementary thrives on its diversity and celebrates the variety of cultures and backgrounds of its student body," the survey explains. "Being named after a scientist who published ideas now viewed as racist seems counter to this mission."
Principal Mira Weber and a Chicago Public Schools spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Swiss-American scientist Louis Agassiz was long celebrated for his research in paleontology, geology and zoology.
"These contributions were considered innovative and ground-breaking at the time," the survey reads.
He is perhaps best known for his theory that Earth had previously experienced an Ice Age, although his legacy is considered tarnished by some for his belief in polygenism.
Now considered a vein of scientific racism, polygenism is the idea that each human race was created separately in different climates and shared distinct attributes.
The content of the survey also explains that "Agassiz strongly believed that miscegenation (mixing of different races) was harmful to the white race."
Agassiz Elementary School is considering a name change. [Facebook/Agassiz Elementary]
Should the school move forward with a possible name change, the Local School Council will host two meetings to get input from the community on suggested replacements and the reasoning behind such a change. Agassiz said it will also involve its middle school students in researching the name change to "promote cultural literacy, advocacy and social justice."
If the council then votes to change the name, it will send three recommendations to the district. After several high-ranking CPS officials sign off on it, the Chicago Board of Education must give its final approval.
It is expected to cost $20,000 to rebrand the school, which would need new signs, spirit wear and marketing materials, the survey says. All cost would be covered through fundraising, rather than take from the school's operating budget.
There are also concerns that the school would lose some of its hard-earned name recognition and would require overworked staff and volunteers to spend additional time on the project.
Schools, mountains, lakes and animal species have come to bear the name Agassiz, particularly in his native Switzerland and Massachusetts, where he lived for 30 years leading up to his death in the late 1800s.
The Chicago fine and performing arts magnet school isn't the first to recoil from its namesake. In 2002, officials renamed an elementary school near Harvard University — where Agassiz was a professor — to honor its first black principal instead.
"I don't think we were taking someone else's name off so much as changing the name" to honor Maria Baldwin, the city's mayor said at the time.
