School District No. 57 (SD57) will not be proceeding with its renaming and redesign process after the board voted to suspend the project in order to focus on other items.
The district launched a survey at the beginning of December in order to get public feedback on the possibility of exploring a new name and visual identity that encompasses all of the communities the district serves.
The reasoning was that the district’s current name, which is officially School District No. 57 (Prince George) and logo does not accurately include or reflect McBride, Mackenzie, and Valemount, as well as, Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, McLeod Lake Indian Band, and the Simpcw First Nation.
At the Board of Education’s regular public meeting Monday night, chair Rachael Weber put forward a motion to suspend the process which was first approved in November 2020 along with the Strategic Plan Process.
“I put forward the recommendation because I listened to the public. I was elected for the public and I need to listen to them,” said Weber.
“Since this survey has come out just on social media stories alone there were 400, 500 comments of people saying 'why?'. We need to seriously take into consideration that changing the name of the school district and logo does not fix the problems underneath it.”
She said she believes the logo and rebranding project is an excellent idea but because of other pressing issues facing the district, does not believe that now is the right time to proceed.
Trustee Betty Bekkering inquired about the responses already received from the survey which was launched on Dec. 5 and closes on Dec. 16.
“We have just under 3,000 people who have completed the survey; of those 3,000 people about 250 are students; just over 500 come from SD57 employees; 2,000 are from parents; and about 350ish are from rightsholders and stakeholders,” explained Superintendent Cindy Heitman.
“With that number of responses I think for us to pivot right now would send really bad optics to the community and I think with 3,000 responses we need to go through those and see exactly where we are at with data,” said Bekkering.
She said any kind of deferral should be made after the data is analyzed.
Trustee Gillian Burnett agreed and said that 3,000 people have taken the time to respond to the survey so it would be disrespectful to pivot now and not even consider the responses.
“I would be uncomfortable suspending this before hearing the responses we have received.”
However, trustee Cory Antrim said he’s heard feedback from the community that many did not like the way the survey was formatted as they felt it was guided toward a certain outcome.
He also said the time senior management and administration would put into the project would take away from other important work.
“I do agree that it is a good idea but it is a good idea when we have shored up our finances and when we have the money and the time,” said Antrim.
“I still believe that the data can be valuable. We can look into the data, compile it, and still release it to the public. Also, it is my opinion that the raw data should also be released in a format so it can be scrutinized by the public, that is a fair way to go, and when we have the financial means we follow through on this.”
When a recommendation to shelve the project came to a vote it passed 4 to 3 with trustees Weber, Brennan, Antrim and McLean voting in favour and trustees Bekkering, Burnett, and Thompson opposed.
