Monday January 13, 2020 ~ LANGFORD
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Two new schools in Langford await structural construction, and names.
Located on Constellation Avenue in the growing Westhills neighbourhood in West Langford, the future elementary and middle schools have land (which is being levelled from its presently steep grade) and lots of name suggestions.
“The civic work continues,” says SD62 Superintendent Scott Stinson. “The contractor is there and trying to stage the work so that we can get in and get building as quickly as possible,” Stinson told West Shore Voice News.
Leveling of one side of the property that will be shared by two schools will be done first so that construction can begin on one school while leveling proceeds for the other. “That’s moving along on schedule,” says Stinson.
As for naming the schools: “We’re making sure we take our time,” says Stinson. “We are doing full consultation with our indigenous partners. And we’re getting good feedback through the Thoughtexchange (online input), with district student council, and several other meetings. We got some good insights.”
Name recommendations will be taken to the board for discussion and approval. “The board is saying let’s sure we have all the info, so we have full consideration. If that means a couple of months, we’ll take the time,” said Stinson.
Staff are hoping to bring to the board at least one suggestion under each of the three categories for each school (elementary and middle): community member, geographical feature, Indigenous place or language. Staff proposing more than one name per category will apparently depend on the feedback from the various sources of stakeholder and public input. In the geographical category, it’s possible that two or three names might make sense for recommendation, Stinson surmises.
Staff will consider everything that is required to meet the board’s policy and what will fit within the context of what the board is trying to accomplish. “Some people sent in suggestions by mail — we’ll make sure everything is considered with careful thought,” Stinson said.
The public online Thoughtexchange process produced 1,500 names and over 30,000 ratings of those names. Results were similar from staff, said Stinson.
“It was a very successful engagement piece using the thought exchange, to help guide the feedback for us. We’ll see how that feedback coalesces into various suggestions to the board.”
=== This news item first ran on page 3 in the January 10 to 12, 2020 print-PDF edition of West Shore Voice News.
=== LINKS:
The online Thoughtexchange process for public input about the two new schools was held in October 2019 (article, October 30, 2019)
Editorial – What’s in a school name? – by Mary Brooke (October 30, 2019)