Board unlikely to revisit school name decision despite 'howls' from community, trustee says

Amid criticism over how the new school in Kingsville, Ont., was named, a school board trustee says she can't see the name "Erie Migration Academy" being changed.

Greater Essex County District School Board trustee Julia Burgess said proper procedure was followed in choosing the name — despite it not appearing on any shortlist.

Burgess told CBC Windsor that while the recommendations of the naming committee for the regional K-12 school were heard and considered, the board isn't bound to follow them.

"It was pretty widely felt across my colleagues, that ... the names that came forward, didn't really reflect what the whole district wanted to have as branding for a brand new school that reflected six prior schools consolidating into one," she said.

"Any kind of motion for reconsideration would be, at this point, I think out of order. There's no reason for it. So, we'll listen to the— everybody's howls, but there would have to be something awfully compelling."

"And since we've adhered to our own policy, our own regulation, it's been open, transparent ... this is it."

Burgess added that the board previously opted not to go with a naming committee suggestion in the case of James L. Dunn Public School in Windsor.

The Greater Essex County District School Board voted to name the new Kingsville school Erie Migration Academy on Tuesday, Feb. 20. (Heather Kitching/CBC)

On Tuesday, the public school board voted 6-2 to adopt the name "Erie Migration Academy," in advance of the 1,700-student school's opening in September.

The name was not one of the two names the 24-member naming committee chose from more than 600 community submissions.

Burgess, who was chair of the naming committee, invoked a regulation that allowed her to put forward the alternate name,which drew from many submissions that used the words "Erie," and "migration."

Migration, Burgess explained at the meeting, would honour both the migration of people as well as bird species and monarch butterflies.

Committee work was 'undermined'

The decision has been met with sharp backlash, including two online petitions and a planned lunch-time walkout protest for students.

Emmerson Jadischke and Kinsey Kendrick, 16-year-old Grade 11 students at Kingsville District High School, are  organizing the walkout event. They're calling for the board to revisit the name.

"We just felt that like the decision that was made by the board was unfair and we felt that this was our only chance to kind of get our voices heard as students who are going to be impacted by this decision," said Kendrick.

Kendrick, who was part of the naming committee, said she felt like the board disregarded the options put forward.

"I just felt that like all of our work that we did on the committee was undermined, and we put in all this work and it was just not put to use," she said.

'Lack of integrity'

Winnie Stanley, a parent who was at Tuesday's meeting, says she would have been fine with new name had it been on the shortlist.

"It comes down to the principle, the lack of integrity through this process," Stanley said. "It's not so much the name."

She and others say, however, they would have liked to see Kingsville reflected in the name, since it's the municipality where the regional school will be located.

Jodie Scherer, a parent of a Kingsville District High School student and a recent graduate, agrees.

"I feel like it was just a couple of words that were thrown around and pulled out of a hat," she said of the chosen name. "Yeah... I don't see it fitting Kingsville as a whole."

Former Kingsville Mayor Nelson Santos is among those who signed a petition against the decision.

"The process was abandoned. The community members, the volunteers that served on the committee, the youth students, they were basically ignored," Santos said.