After bitter months of debate over rebranding, the Analy High School name lives on. The West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) board voted to rescind their March 16 decision to rebrand the consolidated high school and to re-establish its name as Analy at the Dec. 1 special board meeting.
Superintendent Toni Beal said the district would have to wait until the end of this school year to engage the National Collegiate Athletic Association to change the name back to Analy, but that it could be done by August for the 2022-23 school year if the process began in June.
Trustee Angie Lewis gave her last stand in favor of keeping the West County High School bridge name and voted against the motion along with student representative Dylan Peña Pérez. At the end of the meeting, Lewis requested a discussion of the school’s mascot and colors as a future agenda item.
Despite new student survey results favoring Analy, a student walkout is already in the works for Thursday morning in opposition to the board’s decision.
Trustees expressed immediate factors guiding their votes for Analy, like the pressure to take action knowing no decision could please everyone, outpouring Analy alumni support and the new survey results showing over half of the student body backed that name, too.
Beal announced the results of a mid-November student survey on rebranding that revealed 52% of students preferred Analy, while 32.1% voted for West County as the merged school’s permanent name.
The survey achieved 93% participation with 1,148 responses out of 1,403 total students, although 9.4% students voted to abstain, about 6% preferred an “other” option and 147 students were absent and missed the survey.
Trustee Patrick Nagle, who initially called the motion to reinstate the Analy name within the first four minutes of the meeting, shared that he and other board members often hear that they’re not listening to one contingent or another when indeed they are — they just don’t necessarily agree with everything they hear.
Vice Board President Jeanne Fernandes concurred with his assessment and said West County High School was only ever meant to be a temporary name.
Alumni have rallied to preserve the campus’ historic name for months. Analy community members and alumni across every decade since the 1960s made up the majority of those issuing public comments at the meeting. Consistently, speakers called to bring back the name as a way to preserve its history, “heritage” and value to the Sebastopol community.
A few alluded to the possibility that El Molino High School could return someday to serve youth in the deeper west county, though County Superintendent Steve Herrington has made clear the west county district unification study promises nothing.
There were some, including teachers, students and young alumni, who disapproved of the idea for reasons including undoing student efforts to bring Analy and El Molino high school communities together, creating more work for staff and seniors to adapt to the changes and not following up on past assurances.
Board President Kellie Noe voiced her disappointment in the rebranding process run aground, intended follow-ups and conversations with unity teams falling through. Students weren’t properly consulted when the school year began, she said on Nov. 17, as was planned when the board paused the rebranding process and directed the superintendent to run with the bridge name.
The board of trustees first upheld a fiscal recovery plan involving consolidation in the 2021-22 school year on March 10. Then, on March 16, the trustees approved rebranding the consolidated high school to merge student communities on Analy and Laguna school grounds to avoid a sense of takeover.
Not long after, the board went over new information regarding the district’s finances and voted to halt the rebranding timeline on May 5 until the budget demonstrated it could handle seeing the process through. Trustees directed Beal to go with West County High School for the time being “until additional financial information was known and current students could be consulted in the process,” according to the agenda report.
