One of my most interesting memories was one day when the school was still on East Charleston, and was called "Ohlones" --- a name chosen by the first principal when he was reading about the early history of our area, and found a book that said that the native people were called "The Ohlones."
The architect designing the school had called it "East Charleston School," but the principal did not like that name. So he asked that the school be called "Ohlones School" and so it was.
One day a dozen or so years later huge eighteen-wheeler truck drove up the school drive. (I never did figure our how the driver navigated the sharp corners.) The driver hopped out, left the truck engine rumbling so that all the classes knew that something was up, came into the office, and said in effect that he was driving his truck down East Charleston, and was he was so pleased to see a school named for his people. He explained that he was an Ohlone Indian, and that if we really wanted to honor the first people of the area we should call the school "Ohlone", not "Ohlones." Just as we call our country "America," not "Americas."
The sixth graders (yes, we had them at that time) did some research and found out that the truck driver was absolutely right. They asked the Student Council to start a petition, which most of the students signed. The PTA (no Site Council in those days) joined the petition, and one evening I took all of the petitions to a school board meeting and formally asked that the school name be changed. The only question the school board has was how much it would cost. We figured we could paint out the "s" on the wooden school sign, and use up the old letterhead paper, and the total cost would be nothing. So they voted unanimously to change the name. That's the story of how Ohlone got its name.
Jim Mathiott Principal, 1969-1987
If you look closely at the red wooden sign in front of Ohlone school (it was originally brown as were all the signs in front of the elementary schools, but was repainted red to match the school color), you can still see the “s” at the end of “Ohlone.”
This is awesome! I’ve always wondered how the school got its name.