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Sidney Lanier High School was renamed "Juan Navarro High School" - March 24, 2019
Originally Named Sidney Lanier High School, Juan Navarro High School was established in 1961 as the sixth high school in the Austin Independent School District and was originally located in the building which is now Burnet Middle School. Lanier is named for Sidney Lanier who served in the Confederate States Army as a private. It's the fourth AISD school to receive a new name, after the board voted last February to rename its buildings memorializing Confederate figures.
The Austin Independent School District Trustees voted on March 24, 2019, to rename the school Juan Navarro High School. Juan Navarro was a 2007 graduate who died in Afghanistan from an improvised explosive device IED in July 2012.
Manuel Munoz grew up in the Rundberg area with Navarro, and has been advocating to the board for months to consider his friend as a possible namesake. He said to see a member of the U.S. Army rather than a Confederate soldier on a school building is significant.
When it first opened, Lanier had virtually an all Caucasian student base with a highly active FFA Chapter, but over the years it has become a primarily Mexican-American school with close to 85% of its students being Latino.