From Davin to Crescents: A closer look at new name
As the Regina Public School Board’s decision to rename Davin School is receiving mixed reactions from the community, Ashley Martin takes a closer look at how the board got to this point, and whether the new name, The Crescents School, will advance reconciliation as intended.
THE BACKGROUND
Nicholas Flood Davin was a lawyer, journalist, member of Parliament and founder of the Regina Leader newspaper. In 1929, his name was put on a new school at College Avenue and Retallack Street in Regina. That honour was called into question after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report came out in 2015, calling attention to Davin’s involvement in the residential schools system. In 1879, the federal government commissioned Davin to write a report, which recommended Indian residential schools.
For at least two years, the board has discussed the name of Davin School at committee level. In September, the board announced it would decide by the end of the school year whether to rename Davin School. Through an online public consultation process that opened in November, the board received 1,379 responses that were split roughly 50-50, between people wanting to keep the name or change it.
On Tuesday, the board voted 4-1 to change the name.
“For me it came down to the fundamental fact that Davin School is a school,” said trustee Aleana Young. “And having a children’s school named after someone who contributed to the creation and perpetuation of the residential schools system is fundamentally wrong.”
“If this were a government building or even maybe a university building, I might not make the same decision,” trustee Tanya Foster added.
But, as Regina Public prioritizes supporting Indigenous students, “All of this work could be undermined by the decision to retain the name of the author of a school system that destroyed the lives of so many Indigenous people.”
REACTION TO THE CHANGE
As the school division’s survey results suggested would be the case, the community is split on the decision.
But even among Indigenous people, not everyone agrees the name should have been changed.
“In a sense I think that by changing the name, what you’re doing is … trying to hide the history, our dark history, of how Indigenous people were treated,” said Regina resident Brad Bellegarde.
The school board plans to erect a plaque about the man and the decision to change the name, as well as provide educational sessions for students and the community in the new school year.
Even with an official name change, though, the name Davin will remain in the school’s stone facade, as will the original plaque.
That decision frustrates Calvin Racette.
“That big sign is still there, it’s still there in the facade, nothing changes,” said Racette, a Metis educator who previously worked for the Regina Public School Division.
“They need to simply get a big crane up there and put a sign overtop of that ‘Davin.’ ”
Trustee Jay Kasperski was the lone trustee to support keeping the name Davin School. Trustee Jane Ekong abstained from the vote.
Kasperski consulted a 2016 Yale University report that considered the renaming a building to determine that, “With no formal criteria or process to evaluate the renaming of our schools currently in place, the decision to rename the school seems to be based entirely on what each individual trustee feels is right, and can lead to the arbitrary erasing or distorting of history.”
According to trustee Adam Hicks, the school community generally sent a clear message: “Do not change the name.”
That was in part because people do not associate the name of their school with its namesake.
But, argued Florence Stratton, a Davin School alumna from the class of 1955, “That will change if the TRC calls to action are carried out” and people become more educated.
“If the Davin name has no meaning today, it will in five years’ time if those calls to action are followed through on.”
Young said she is “hopeful that by submitting this motion, we can continue this tenuous and jerky walk towards reconciliation.”
School board chair Katherine Gagne said the name change will be used “to educate and to support the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
IS IT REALLY RECONCILIATION?
Regina resident Joely BigEagle-Kequahtooway said the name change falls short of meaningful reconciliation — main reason being, The Crescents School is a meaningless name.
“Is reconciliation just about changing the name with something that is not offensive to anybody, and really a safe (choice)? Well, to me that’s not reconciliation, that’s just changing the name,” she said.
Simon Ash-Moccasin, a Davin alumnus who favoured changing the school’s name, suggested Chief Piapot would have made a good honoree.
Adds Ash-Moccasin: “I think it shows that Regina is willing to move forward and that feels good for me.”
Racette doesn’t see it that way. “They gave it lip service, because they didn’t reconcile anything. It looks like they got bullied into changing the name and so they did change the name, but they did it begrudgingly, then they left it still there (on the facade),” said Racette.
Those “bullies” would include University of Regina education professor and Crescents neighbourhood resident Marc Spooner, a vocal proponent for changing the name, and the citizens group Real Renewal, whose members include Stratton and Ash-Moccasin.
“I don’t think anybody in our (Indigenous) community would be pleased with (the board’s decision), I don’t think anybody in any community is pleased with it,” added Racette. “They really didn’t deal with anything properly.”
HOW SCHOOLS
GET THEIR NAMES
The Regina Public School Board is responsible for naming the division’s schools.
The current policy to that effect reads, in part: “In general, schools are to be named for persons whose major contribution has been in the field of education.”
However, division administration is reviewing the policy, at the board’s request, to “ensure that it stipulates the board’s practice and intention not to name schools after individuals.”
Trustee Cindy Anderson alluded to the reasons for this on Tuesday.
“I’ve been a firm advocate for not naming schools after people. There is always a potential for skeletons in the closet,” said Anderson.
The Regina Public School Board renamed its adult campus in fall 2017 to honour former premier Allan Blakeney, at Brad Wall’s suggestion. Given its pending policy to keep people’s names off new schools, Racette calls the decision “hypocritical.”
The division’s three newest schools, which opened in September, are called Plainsview, Wascana Plains and Harbour Landing.
Those names were chosen after a “name your school” contest, asking people to submit names “relevant to education, meaningful to the Regina community the school will serve,” and honouring the school division’s values of “I belong, I want to know, I am responsible and I respect.” The names should “remain relevant to future generations.”
In the case of The Crescents School — not to be confused with Crescent School, which closed on Dixon Crescent in 1993 — BigEagle-Kequahtooway said other names could have done more to advance reconciliation.
She pointed to mamaweyatitan centre, which opened in fall 2017 and houses Scott Collegiate, as well as several community services.
(mamaweyatitan is Cree for “let’s all be together.”)
The 2014 Seven Stones School represents the seven stones or guiding principles of Anishinaabe culture.
Racette had suggested elder Lilly Daniels’ name for that new school, as Daniels spent a lot of time working in community schools, teaching children about First Nations culture.
When renaming Davin, BigEagle-Kequahtooway wondered, “Why couldn’t it be a school name that has an Indigenous word?”
She added, “Are we just going to be the city of generic parks and streets and building names, so that we’re the typical Canadian community that we don’t want to offend anybody, but we don’t want to celebrate anybody?”
The school board said the name The Crescents School was reflective of the neighbourhood, but Stratton disagreed.
“North of College (Avenue), which is also the Davin catchment (area) does not belong to the Crescents,” said Stratton.