Haight turned to love in Alameda on April 23 when the school district’s board voted to change the name of an elementary school, proponents of the change said.

Rasheed Shabazz with the Coalition to Rename Haight said board members voted unanimously to change the name of Haight Elementary School to Love Elementary School at a meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Alameda City Hall.

The school was named after Henry Huntly Haight, a former California governor who held racist views, according to school district officials.

“So tonight was a big night,” said Rochelle Lokting, a parent of two at the school and part of the renaming committee.

Committee members sought names that would be anti-racist. Lokting said the new name is not the name of a person, but rather the idea of love, and because among other reasons love is at the center of learning.

The process to rename the school caused a great deal of divisiveness, Lokting said. Some teachers opposed to the change.

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.