Hamilton’s public school board will no longer be naming schools after notable figures.
Trustees accepted recommendations Monday from a recent public consultation that recommended the executive stop naming learning facilities after people and stick to locations, landmarks and natural features.
Results from the late 2022 query with close to 500 students, staff and community members saw some 300-plus lean toward opposing the naming of schools after individuals.
A draft policy, first suggested in May of 2022, essentially will now go into effect precipitating a review of all HWDSB school names to ensure they reflect the board’s mission, vision and values.
That blueprint was founded on the renaming of the former Ryerson Elementary, now Kanétskare Elementary, in June 2021 following the discovery of unmarked residential school graves across Canada.
The Charlton Avenue school was named for Edgerton Ryerson, an architect of the residential school system.
Trustee Maria Felix Miller acknowledged concerns from some of her colleagues about the new policy potentially limiting options or ignoring community voices.
“I would ask the trustees that we be open-minded and consider what other opportunities we have to explore,” Felix Miller said.
“What other words, what other names, what other energies, locations and other inspirations (could we) seek?”
Prior to the board vote, chair Dawn Danko told Global News “concerns in the community” were the primary catalyst for examining and ultimately eliminating the naming convention.
“We have worked along with Indigenous teams and communities to make sure that we’re really thinking about this from an anti-colonial lens,” Danko said.
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The chair reckoned back to a decade ago and how heated the 2014 debate over the naming of Nora Frances Henderson Secondary became.
Henderson, the first woman to be elected to city council, was a somewhat controversial choice due to her decision to cross a picket line in 1946 during a Stelco strike.
“That’s because you’re basically trying to place competing values on what different people have contributed to a community and which you feel is the most important,” Danko said.
“I would say that the other challenge that we have when are naming after a person … we have to ask family permission to put their name forward.”
Monday’s vote saw nine of 11 trustees and the two student trustees vote in favour of going forward with a new policy.
The two trustees that were not in favour cited concern about potentially limiting naming opportunities and ignoring community input.
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