Irene B. West, who broke barriers as Elk Grove’s first Black teacher, dies at 88
Irene B. West, a pathcharting educator in Elk Grove as the city’s first Black teacher, remembered for her graciousness and a deeply rooted faith, died Wednesday at her Sacramento home. She was 88.
News of West’s death rippled quickly through the city where she served as an educator and Elk Grove Unified School District principal at seven district schools over a nearly 30-year career and where an elementary school bears her name.
The school’s slogan: “Go 2 West — Go 2 College!”
West, a graduate of the historically Black college Fisk University in Tennessee, came from a family of teachers and moved to Sacramento with her husband, an employee at McClellan Air Force Base, in 1962. She soon found a job as a teacher in then-rural Elk Grove.
West would teach at Elk Grove, James McKee and Florin elementary schools before serving as principal of John Reith and Cosumnes River elementary schools. West retired as principal of Franklin Elementary School in 1989. After her namesake school opened in 2002, West remained an active presence at the campus into her 80s.
“Her sisters were teachers. To pick up her profession where there weren’t a lot of people who looked like her. ...,” Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen said Thursday. “Being first is always hard. She was an inspiration for a lot of teachers here. She was a trailblazer. She had an impact here that will be felt for generations.”
Singh-Allen served as president of Elk Grove Unified School District Board of Trustees before winning election last fall. The Elk Grove mayor said a plan for city recognition of West’s life and legacy are in the works. “She had a profound impact not only to our school district but to our city as well.”
The Sacramento Observer newspaper wrote of West in 2019, saying the longtime educator embarked on “a journey of enormous grace, determination and faith,” calling West “an important part of the history of the Elk Grove area.”
West’s legacy extends through her four children, Clifton, Cheryl, Cynthia, and the public intellectual, activist and philosopher, Cornel West.
Irene B. West Elementary School families learned Thursday of West’s death in a letter from the school’s principal, Brian MacNeill. The school’s lobby in Serio Way on the city limits of Elk Grove and Sacramento honors the longtime educator.
Students are reminded each with the words above her portrait to “Be Strong and Courageous.”
Framed news clippings share space with family photos, a photograph of West with a young Gov. Jerry Brown and civil rights leader and United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young; and class photos at the Elk Grove schools where she taught over the years.
School staff wear T-shirts with West’s favorite proverb emblazoned on the back: “If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail. If you can’t be the sun, be a star. It isn’t by size that you win or you fall, be the best of whatever you are.”
“She was an amazing lady. She was an old soul who was all about loving kids and families,” MacNeill said Thursday. “She was passionate about three things: early education, helping develop a passion for learning and making learning fun.”
“She was a remarkable woman. She gave so much of herself,” remembered Pat Sandefur of Elk Grove. Sandefur broke barriers of her own as the first African American to head the city’s library.
“She was a great role model for me, not for all the big things she did, but for all the small things she did,” Sandefur said Thursday. “She’s a wonderful woman. We could all use her as a role model.”
Funeral services are pending.
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 11:57 AM.
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