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Sunday, July 25, 1999

School may bear name of Mireles
Board expected to approve suggestion
By Jonathan Osborne
Caller-Times

Almost sixty years ago, Edmund Mireles decided that he needed to break the law to help Corpus Christi children learn. While teaching Spanish to grade school classes, he fought - and won - a national battle to overturn a law that prohibited teaching foreign languages to elementary students.
   But if Corpus Christi Independent School District school board members vote as expected Monday to name a new elementary school for the famous educator and his wife, Jovita Gonzalez Mireles, remembering the Mireleses' legacy won't stop with a name on a building.
   "They're very deserving," Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said. "They were pioneers in the area of bilingual education, not only in Corpus Christi, but frankly, throughout the state."
   The new school, which is scheduled to open for the 2000-2001 school year, will be located in the Bear Creek subdivision next to Bill Witt Park.
   Project Mireles - a committee that for several months has published pamphlets and booklets in support of naming the school after the Mireleses - plans to stay involved with the school.
   Should the school board approve the name, the committee will help with fundraisers and donate textbooks and pictures, publicity chairman Benito Barrera said.
   "If they approve (the name). . . we'll continue working on this project," Barrera said. "We'll continue helping the school and it will be like an adopt-the-school program."
   Barrera said it's important for children to learn about the Mireleses andthe steps theymade for the education of Hispanics and all Americans. Project Mireles, Barrera said, will aim to keep that legacy alive.
   "We'll just continue working and helping the children of the school so they can know more about the Mireleses," Barrera said. "All the committee members and some of the other friends of the Mireleses . . . plan to continue going to visit the school and being sponsors of the school for whatever needs they may have."
   Bilingual pioneer
   Edmund Mireles, who died in March 1987, is recognized nationwide as the father of bilingual education.
   Mireles came to Corpus Christi in 1939 and began teaching Spanish in grade school - the nation's first bilingual education program - the next year, in direct conflict with a law prohibiting teaching foreign languages to elementary school students. Mireles enlisted the help of powerful politicians and statesmen, including then-U.S. Rep. Lyndon Johnson and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, to repeal the law in 1941.
   That same year, Mireles established a Spanish institute in Corpus Christi to train teachers and set up an adult education program. In 1956, he started a preschool program for non-English-speaking children. He taught for nearly 40 years.
   Textbook collaboration
   With his wife, Mireles wrote the "Mi Libro Espa¤ol" series, which was used for several years in school districts across Texas and other states. His wife taught for two decades at Miller and Ray high schools. She died in 1982.
   On Friday, the five CCISD board members who intended to attend Monday's meeting all said they supported naming the school for Mireles.
   "The Mireles issue is something I have been trying to pass for the last couple of years," School Board President Frank Reyes said. "I'm confident that we have the votes (today) to see the Mireles name come forward."
   Positive outlook
   Trustee Rene Vela said the community support has been overwhelming.
   "There's been approximately 140 letters of support," Vela said. "We're probably going to have between 200 to 300 people at the board meeting."
   Despite the support for naming the school for the Mireleses, trustee Dorothy Adkins said the board has a duty to remain open-minded.
   "We have a process in place and there are other nominations," Adkins said. "The board has to look at who they are and take a vote."
   Adkins said personally, though, she supported the nomination.
   Twice before, Mireles' name has come before the board as a nomination for a new school, and twice it has failed.
   In 1993, the school board voted 5-1 to name a new middle school after the Rev. Elliott Grant, a longtime civil rights leader and CCISD board member, instead of the Mireleses. In 1997, the board chose World War II veteran Joe Dawson over the Mireleses as the namesake of an elementary school.
   "This time it will move forward," Reyes said.

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