NAMING CONTROVERSY,

Neither the chief of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation nor the vice-chair of the Kelly Road Parent Advisory Committee are happy with the School District 57 board’s decision for the new Hart high school to have the dual name of Shas Ti Secondary and Kelly Road Secondary.

Chief Clayton Pountney said the dual name will divide students and the community for years to come.

“In the coming decades when you have a kid calling the school Shas Ti and everyone else is saying Kelly Road, you will see the fight keep going,” he said. “If they had just went with one we could deal with the aftermath now but this aftermath may last decades.”

Chief Poutney and Lheidli T’enneh elders had made a request to the board on Feb. 25 to name the new school Shas Ti Secondary School. The trustees unanimously voted after that presentation to begin the process of renaming the new $44.3 million school that opens in September to replace the old Kelly Road Secondary.

The request came on the heels of the Lheidli T’enneh hosting its first balhats, the First Nation’s version of a potlatch, in 73 years last November. The Lheidli T’enneh’s relationship with School District 57 was celebrated during the balhats.

“The board of education has betrayed our nation, our students and our members,” Pountney said. “All I can say for sure is that our relationship with SD 57 has been damaged by those board members who changed their vote and it will take a very long time to heal.”

Like many people on both sides of the high school name issue, including some of the school board trustees, Pountney said the naming process was flawed.

“We’d like to be included from the very beginning,” he said. “That’s one of the main pieces. So when you’re in the planning stages, reach out - this is our territory - and it’s actually kind of rude not to.”

Lotte Andersen, vice chair of the Kelly Road parent advisory committee, said she thinks the name should have remained Kelly Road Secondary School and found the whole process peculiar.

Part of the community engagement process was an online questionnaire. The survey found 68 per cent of the 2,707 respondents said the new school should keep the name Kelly Road while 13 per cent supported changing the name to Shas Ti, while another 13 per cent agreed to a blended name.

“It’s very odd that when you have a community who has a school that they really really appreciate and have worked hard to make better and create a really wonderful community that the usual democracy and listening to people was just cancelled,” Andersen said.

The dual name doesn’t do anything for reconciliation, she added. If it were a brand new school, not a replacement school then it could begin fresh with an original name so it could build its own history in the community, Andersen said.

“Is it perfect? No. But I believe it recognizes and acknowledges both histories,” school trustee Ron Polillo said.

The decision to give the school two names was an amended version of a motion put forward by Polillo, which called for the school to be named Kelly Road Shas Ti Secondary.

“I will support this motion because it provides for the greatest number of people in our constituency,” trustee Bob Thompson said. “I worry about the confrontation getting out of hand if one side wins and one side loses.”

Trustees debated four options, which included the dual name, keeping the name Kelly Road but incorporating Lheidli T’enneh culture and history into other parts of the school, naming the school Shas Ti, and naming the school Shas Ti and the school gymnasium after Kelly Road.

The debate lasted more than two hours, with Polillo, Thompson, chairperson Tim Bennett and trustee Sharel Warrington voting in favour, while trustees Trent Derrick, Betty Bekkering and Shuirose Valimohamed voted against it.

“While I 100 per cent believe that Shas Ti needs to be on the building, I worry that this decision... puts a dark cloud over the opening of this new building,” Bennett said. “It’s going to be an opportunity for incredible, 21st-century learning to happen in that building.”

Both Derrick and Bekkering put forward motions which would have named the school exclusively Shas Ti Secondary.

“There is a lot of talk about compromise. Why is it always the First Nations who have to compromise? They’ve been compromising for 150 years,” Derrick said. “This is not a big ask. We have 42 schools in our district, it’s not to big to have one (with a Lheidli T’enneh name).”

At the beginning of the board meeting, which was conducted via videoconferencing software and live-streamed online, school district staff read several of the 88 emails submitted by members of the public about the issue.

A total of 57 individuals wrote emails in favour of keeping the Kelly Road name, with some submitting multiple emails on the subject, School District 57 secretarytreasurer Darleen Patterson said. Eleven people wrote emails in favour of the name Shas Ti Secondary School.

“Changing the name is a form of appeasement. The entire process is creating a rift in our community,” an email submitted by 13 people said. “We know Kelly Road has a history and a legacy in the district.”

The email said changing the name won’t do anything meaningful to achieve for reconciliation.

“I’m writing to you to beg you, don’t change the name Kelly Road. Kelly Road is a special school and the name has meaning to us,” Kelly Road alumni Teresa Jordan wrote. “Changing the name feels like you are erasing our memories.”

Not all Kelly Road alumni opposed the change, however. Laura Parent, who graduated in 2017, said she “whole-heartedly supports” the change to Shas Ti.

“I was born and raised in the Hart and attended KRSS for five years. Changing the name of the school does not and will not take away any of my Roadrunner identity from me. I am proud to be a graduate of KRSS, but I would be much more proud to be from an inclusive community. This issue, at it’s core, is about race.”

Those opposed to the name change should think about why they are so uncomfortable with a Lheidli T’enneh name, she wrote.