Name Changes in Van Nuys

As a native of the San Fernando Valley, born in Sherman Oaks in 1947, I was sorry to read that Van Nuys Junior High Principal Cecilia Costas said that “the logic of a school being named after a community is a thing of the past.”

Changing Van Nuys Junior High to Sherman Oaks Junior High is much more sensible than naming it after a personality who may be in fashion at the moment but who isn’t from this area and who may prove to be an embarrassment--as the folks at Steve Garvey Junior High and John F. Kennedy High have discovered.

If Van Nuys Junior High must be trendy and name itself after a person, than why not Michael Ovitz? He is from the Van Nuys area and Michael Ovitz Junior High School has a very nifty ring to it.

My girls go to Dixie Canyon Elementary School. There are probably dozens of schools named after Christa McAuliffe, but there is only one Dixie Canyon Elementary School. In this world of chain stores, malls and theater chains, why do schools also have to be all alike?

LINDA COWAN MOSE

Sherman Oaks