Can a school’s name change the reputation of a community? Wake leaders hope so.

Wake County school leaders hope to change the conversation about Southeast Raleigh, which they worry is seen as an area plagued by crime and poverty, by naming a new elementary school after the community.

A Wake County school board committee recommended Wednesday using Southeast Raleigh Elementary as the name of a new joint school and YMCA of the Triangle facility scheduled to open in 2019 on Rock Quarry Road.

School and YMCA leaders hope the project will be so successful that people will think more positively about Southeast Raleigh, one of the most economically depressed parts of Wake County. Test scores of students who live in Southeast Raleigh are well below the district average.

The school/YMCA is part of a complex at the former Watson’s Flea Market that will include more than 70 units of affordable housing and space that could include a health care facility and a grocery store.

“I am looking for this to be a model for closing achievement gaps, preparing people for economic success and building a community that’s different from any other place in Wake County,” school board member Bill Fletcher, chairman of the facilities committee, said after Wednesday’s meeting.

The committee recommended Southeast Raleigh over four other name options: Rock Quarry Elementary, Creekside Elementary, Beacon Elementary and Marvin Pittman Elementary School: A School of Promise. The full school board could approve the new name on Tuesday.

School board member Jim Martin said Wednesday he was initially leaning toward Beacon as the new school’s name. He cited how some Southeast Raleigh High students have voiced to him frustration with the Southeast Raleigh name because online searches bring up news stories about the region instead of the school.

“Not that I want to stigmatize Southeast Raleigh,” Martin said. “But part of the problem is already it is stigmatized, so how do we create an alternative?”

If the Southeast Raleigh High community petitions for a name change, Fletcher said, the board might consider the request.

Deputy Superintendent Cathy Moore said the project’s Academic Leadership Team, which includes representatives of the YMCA, the community and the school system, had some of the same concerns Martin raised for using Southeast Raleigh as the school’s name. But she said the group backed the Southeast Raleigh name based on what the school is supposed to accomplish.

Moore said the new school would target the six U.S. census tracts in Southeast Raleigh with the highest needs as part of an effort to improve educational outcomes.

“By calling it Southeast Raleigh, they are hoping to have that be an opportunity to reframe what that means to the community with what they’re planning to do with the school site,” Moore said.

Southeast Raleigh Elementary would fit in with school board policy that calls for naming new schools after geographic locations, roads, streets and natural or historical features. The new school is at 1436 Rock Quarry Road near Interstate 40 in Southeast Raleigh, about one mile from Southeast Raleigh High School.

If the full school board goes with a different option, it could decide for the first time since the 1970s to specifically name a new school after a person. A high school named after the late Vernon Malone opened in 2014, but the name was chosen by the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

Pittman was hailed by school board members as a “giant in education” after he died in September 2016. Over a span of more than 40 years, Pittman was an education consultant, teacher, principal and senior official in the Wake and Durham school systems and the state Department of Public Instruction. He was also heavily involved in promoting educational opportunities for children in Southeast Raleigh.

The school board would have to waive policy to name the school after Pittman or to use the name Beacon, which is an option because the YMCA has called the property its Beacon site. School board member Kathy Hartenstine warned her colleagues that waiving policy would open the door to not naming schools after geographic features.

Fletcher said that while Pittman was a “wonderful educator,” there are other people who could be chosen for the new school’s name. For instance, a group of middle school students wants Wake to name a school after the Holt family, who tried to integrate Raleigh’s schools in the 1950s.

Fletcher said that a classroom or some other part of the new school could be named after Pittman.

“Marvin was a saint,” Fletcher said. “We all loved Marvin. Our policy has worked for years and the consensus of the board today was to maintain the policy.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 1:40 PM with the headline "Can a school’s name change the reputation of a community? Wake leaders hope so.."