Erie Migration Academy, Beacon Heights picked as names for new GECDSB schools

The Greater Essex County District School Board decided on names for two new schools in the region at a board meeting Tuesday evening.

But some parents in Kingsville say they aren't thrilled with the new name.

A new school in the Town of Tecumseh will be named Beacon Heights Public School and the new school in the Town of Kingsville, Erie Migration Academy.

The schools in both communities are slated to open later this year. Beacon Heights will be a new K-8 school in Tecumseh and Erie Migration Academy will be a K-12 school.

Kingsville school name a reference to avian migration routes

Erie Migration Academy did not appear on a short list of names for the new Kingsville School.

The chair of the naming committee for the school, Julia Burgess, invoked a regulation that allowed her to put forward an alternate name – one that drew from countless submissions using the words "Erie," "North" and "shores," she said.

She credited board public relations officer Scott Scantlebury with providing background information about the culture and ecology of the area that helped inform the final name.

"The Mississippi and the Atlantic avian flyways intersect over the entire area for both spring and fall migrations," she said.

"The monarch butterfly connects us to Central America, often the homeland of many of the migrant workers who also follow the seasons."

Trustee Nancy Armstrong said she appreciated the thought that Burgess put into the name but didn't want to go against the names the parents and committee had come up with.

"I truly think that, if the parents and the committee have come up with four out of the five that had the word 'Kingsville' in it … how are they going to feel?" she asked.

Armstrong and trustee Linda Qin voted against the new name, but the motion to adopt it passed with the support of six other trustees.

Corrine Ross, a Kingsville resident who currently has two children in the school system, says that she's dissatisfied with the name.

"I wasn't on the naming committee to put my personal opinions forward, but I trusted that the naming committee was going to come up with something that the the students wanted, the community and the teachers wanted," she told CBC News.

Corrine took issue with the word "academy," which she argued did not connote Kingsville's public school system.

She also felt that the new name had little to do with the Town of Kingsville.

"It sounds like a bird observatory and Kingsville doesn't even have a whole lot of connection with migration really," Ross said.

"We're just grasping at straws... The school's not on the water, the town's not on the water."

Burgess declined to be interviewed by CBC News about the name, though said in the meeting Tuesday she could foresee backlash about the name.

The Greater Essex County District School Board said in a statement that both "migration" and "Erie" were popular suggestions among the more than 600 names submitted in a public survey.

Beacon Heights 'better represents the community'

Beacon Heights was one of two names on a short list produced by the board's naming committee for the school, the other was North Shore.

Connie Bucklar, the trustee who chaired the naming committee for the Tecumseh school said the words "north" and "shore" already appear in a number of names in the area.

"The redundancy didn't make this brand-new school we have been waiting for so long, stand out," she said.

"So it's my belief that 'beacon,' which means a light to guide or a person who inspires and encourages others, and 'heights' … better represents the community it's going to serve."

Trustee Colin Pyne expressed concern about the socio-economic message "Beacon Heights" would bring, given that Beacon Hill is the name of a wealthy "primarily white-owned" neighbourhood in Boston.

But other trustees pointed out that "Beacon" is a common name in coastal communities, and committee member Gale Hatfield said nobody had expressed concern about an association with Beacon Hill.