Voting begins this week to rename Cesar E. Chavez Learning Academies (CCLA) in the City of San Fernando, about a month after startling revelations that the late labor leader Cesar Chavez allegedly sexually abused at least one young girl as well as United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta.
Voting – which begins online at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 23 – is open to CCLA parents, CCLA alumni, members of partner organizations, local employees and business owners and residents of the City of San Fernando.
Last month, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution to begin the process of renaming CCLA by the fall.
“In light of the abuse allegations against Cesar Chavez, we knew as a school district it was important to take action … to ensure that we stand for safety and truth, and that the names that are on our campuses are in line with our values as an institution,” said LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez, who represents the East San Fernando Valley.
“I appreciate [that] the school is working on a really quick timeline to try to ensure that we can have a new name by the fall of 2026,” she added, “and I think they’re taking very intentional steps to be inclusive and to make sure that community voices are heard.”
Angie Jensen Cachon, principal of CCLA’s Academy of Scientific Exploration, said students received surveys to share their name suggestions for the campus shortly after LAUSD voted in favor of the name change. She believes it’s important to get additional input from the broader community as well, to include “everybody’s voices.”
For Edith Saucedo, whose daughter will be graduating from CCLA this year, the swift and urgent calls to rename CCLA were initially unsettling, but she now feels “it needs to happen.”
“I was torn, because [in my family] we had followed [Chavez] in the 1970s and 80s – we stopped eating grapes, and we [believed in] the movement,” she said. “I was disappointed at first at how quickly they moved without really investigating … these accusations. But now I’m glad they [did], but I would like to see a name change that doesn’t include a person’s name.”
Two possible name options Saucedo has considered are Arroyo Learning Academies, because the campus is located on Arroyo Avenue, or College and Career Leadership Academies, because that would allow them to keep the CCLA abbreviation for the high school, she said with a smile.
But regardless of the new name ultimately selected, she believes that removing Chavez’s name shouldn’t change the campus from remaining rooted in the cause of social justice.
“He’s not the only person who has fought for social justice – there have been a lot of other people; it wasn’t just him and Dolores [Huerta],” said Saucedo. “It was also all of the people who surrounded them, who marched with them … who were also out there fighting for social justice.”
Gonez said LAUSD will be exploring how Chavez will be included in the school curriculum moving forward.
“These revelations about Cesar Chavez’s abuse of girls and women will be leading to a reevaluation of how we treat him as a subject as part of our curriculum, not specifically because of the renaming here, but, more broadly, because we want to ensure that the historical record we teach our students reflects the accuracy and the complexity of individual figures,” she said.
Regarding Ethnic Studies, for example, Gonez said, “We want to ensure [the curriculum reflects] the importance of the farm workers movement – [and] the many people who helped make that happen – while ensuring that we are not glossing over the abuse of vulnerable people.”
CCLA hosted in-person and virtual town halls earlier this week to discuss the steps for renaming the local high school. The town halls outlined the process for submitting name suggestions, which could be provided during the meetings and online.
After all name suggestions are reviewed, the top three will be selected for the voting phase, which will be open online April 23 to April 30. In-person voting at CCLA will be April 27 to April 29.
While the renaming survey remains open, name suggestions for CCLA can be submitted at: https://bit.ly/RenamingCCLAsurvey
Once online voting opens at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, community members will be able to vote online through April 30 at: https://bit.ly/RenameCCLAballot2026
In-person voting will be available April 27-29, from 7:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., in the Welcome Center at CCLA, which is located at 1001 Arroyo Ave. in the City of San Fernando.