Board to listen to students

“We are here to listen”: SD57 to visit Kelly Road over school’s renaming concerns

Mar 2, 2020 | 2:32 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – School District 57 spent the past weekend reviewing and replying to all forms of feedback they received regarding a possible name change of the Hart community’s secondary school.

Last week, a motion was carried at the school board meeting to engage in a process to rename the newly constructed Kelly Road Secondary School to Shas Ti Secondary School.

“The Board and administrative staff are committed to reading and responding to every call and email, and completed this over the weekend,” said Tim Bennett, Board Chair. ” We ere informed by the comments, many of which came from students who were unhappy about the process to date, but already had creative suggestions for moving forward.”

In a release, the Board have communicated that they will be joining school staff in classroom visits at Kelly Road Secondary School.

According to the release, the purpose of the visits is to listen to students, acknowledge their voice with regards to the situation as they work to move forward with an upcoming participatory process.

“Last week, some students felt compelled to choose protest to voice their feelings. We feel strongly that we need to give all students the ability to share their thoughts and feelings while we are here to listen. We will do that by making ourselves available to them in their classrooms,” said School District 57 Superintendent Anita Richardson.

Adding that staff at Kelly Road were also surprised by the news of the motion, the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent will also be participating in a staff meeting for KRSS teachers this week where staff will be able to ask questions and understand their role in the process moving forward.

In order to keep up with public feedback, the School District has set up a feedback email: kellyroadfeedback@sd57.bc.ca and has updated its Q&A section on its website in order to address the most pressing questions.

More details on the engagement process will be announced before Spring Break.