Fresno City made history by becoming the first in the U.S. to name a school after a Sikh.

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Fresno’s Central Unified School District has achieved a significant milestone by designating a new elementary school in honor of a Sikh individual. On January 28, the school board reached a decision with a vote of 6-1 to name the new facility, situated at the intersection of Shields and Brawley avenues, Jaswant Singh Khalra Elementary. Scheduled to open in August 2025, this institution will mark the first public school in North America to bear the name of someone of Sikh heritage, as stated in a media release.The district caters to a substantial Punjabi Sikh population, with approximately 1,700 students, or 10.55% of the overall student body, identifying as Punjabi or Southeast Asian, according to The Fresno Bee.

It is anticipated that Punjabi students will constitute around 9% of the enrollment at the new school. Jaswant Singh Khalra Elementary will be the 15th elementary school within Central Unified designed to accommodate over 600 students from preschool through sixth grade. The campus will feature a multi-purpose building, an outdoor amphitheater, play courts, and state-of-the-art baseball, softball, and soccer fields.Describing the vote as a “historic moment,” Naindeep Singh Chann, President of the Central Unified School District Board of Trustees, expressed his pride in supporting the naming alongside fellow Trustees Nabil Kherfan, Yesenia Z. Carillo, Karla Kirk, Jaspreet Singh Sidhu, and Natalie Chavez. Khalra, who served as a bank director in Amritsar, devoted himself in the early 1990s to uncovering the cases of disappearances and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the Punjab police.His daughter, Navkiran Kaur Khalra, is an alumna of Fresno State and currently works in the Bay Area. In 2017, Fresno honored Khalra’s legacy by naming a park after him, located approximately two miles from the new school.Renowned Punjabi singer and actor Diljit Dosanjh took to Instagram to commend the recognition, labeling the decision as “historic.” Dosanjh is preparing to portray Khalra in an upcoming biopic titled Punjab 95, which will depict the life of the late human rights activist who was abducted and murdered in 1995, a case that ultimately led to the conviction and sentencing of six Punjab police officials. Punjab 95 is slated for an international release.