Get a look at possible 2021-22 calendar for Tulsa Public Schools, new name for Dual Language Academy

As presented to the board, the 2021-22 school year would start on Aug. 19 and, if there are no snow days, end on May 26, 2022.

Negotiations are underway with the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association and the American Federation of Teachers to potentially incorporate extended learning sessions in October and February similar to the intersession weeks built into the district’s current calendar. Those sessions would be incorporated into weeks that would normally have only two or three instructional days, thanks to teacher professional development days or parent-teacher conferences.

“This won’t take away from the total amount of days and hours students go to school,” Superintendent Deborah Gist said. “The days are just spread out a little differently. This would be an opportunity to provide additional academic supports or enrichment opportunities.”

The calendar will come back to the board for formal approval later this spring. It was compiled with feedback from 200 families selected at random from around the district.

In other business, the board also got its first formal look at the proposed new name for the Dual Language Academy as recommended by an ad hoc committee.

Pending board approval later this spring, the committee unanimously recommended that the magnet elementary school’s new name be Felicitas Mendez International School starting in August.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Mendez and four other families sued their local public school district in Westminster, California, over its segregation policies, which barred Hispanic students from attending. The families won their case in 1946, and the decision was upheld by the Ninth Circuit of Court Appeals a year later — seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court held in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation was unconstitutional.

Other potential names considered by the school’s community include current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, labor leader and community organizer Cesar Chavez and former Cherokee Principal Chief J.B. Milam, who worked to establish Cherokee language classes in the 1940s. The school’s north Tulsa campus is within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation.

School board member Jennettie Marshall, whose district includes Dual Language Academy, lauded the committee’s choice.

“We live in a state where we talk proudly about incarcerating more women than any other state,” she said. “Changing the name to one in honor of a woman does something for our little girls. This gives them someone to look up to.”

Featured video: Tulsa Public Schools distance learning: Governor, superintendent debate issue publicly

Twenty questions: How will you fare in ultimate Tulsa pop culture quiz?