The Latest: California’s Dixie School District to be renamed

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – The Latest on Dixie School District in California voting on name change (all times local):

9:20 p.m.

The Dixie School District in California has voted to change its name after critics linked the name to the Confederacy and slavery.

Trustees in the 150-year-old San Francisco Bay Area district voted Tuesday to rename it the Miller Creek Elementary School District. The vote was 3-1 with one abstention.

Trustees also voted to change the name of the elementary school from Dixie to Lucas Valley.

The issue has pitted parents against each other for months in the city of San Rafael.

Supporters of name change said Dixie was named by founder James Miller on a dare by Confederate sympathizers. Opponents said it honoured an American Indian woman named Mary Dixie. Some critics argued a change would be political correctness run amok.

The change will take place before classes resume in August.

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1:32 p.m.

Trustees for the Dixie School District in the California city of San Rafael will consider a new name for the 150-year-old district after critics linked it to the Confederacy and slavery.

Trustees will vote Tuesday to change the name of the San Francisco Bay Area district to one of three possibilities: Laurel Creek, Creekside or Kenne school district.

They’ll also choose a new name for the district’s only elementary school, from Dixie Elementary to Big Rock, Lucas Valley or Creekside.

The name-change issue has pitted parents against each other for months and generated heated debate in San Rafael, an overwhelmingly white city of 59,000 people.

Some insisted the Dixie name is racially insensitive, while others complained the change was political correctness run amok. The board approved the change in April.