By Matt Fetinko

Dual name

Compromise found for Kelly Road Secondary School name change

Apr 28, 2020 | 10:18 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — School District 57 has voted on a name for the new Kelly Road Secondary School. It will be Kelly Road Secondary School/Shas Ti Secondary School.

The motion for that was originally made by Trustee Ron Polillo but was amended slightly. It received four votes in favour and three against. Roughly one hour was spent at the beginning of Tuesday’s board meeting was spent reading public feedback surrounding the potential name change, most of which was against a change. The entire meeting took four hours with nearly all of it dedicated to this issue.

Trustees put forward four recommendations to vote on. A dual name of Kelly Road Shas Ti Secondary (Ron Polillo); Kelly Road Secondary School retains its name, while the school board and Lheidli T’enneh Elders work with students and staff of KRSS to find alternate ways to incorporate the ancestral history of the Lheidli T’enneh, Shas Ti, and the Dakelh language (Sharel Warrington); the name changes to Shas Ti Secondary School and the school board work with students, staff, school leaders and administration to incorporate the history of Kelly Road Secondary School into the new school (Betty Bekkering); and the name of the school changes to Shas Ti Secondary School while the gym is called Kelly Road Gym to honour the history of Kelly Road Secondary School (Trent Derrick). The original motion made earlier this year was also brought forward by trustee Derrick.

This name change follows a number of protests against changing the name of the new Kelly Road Secondary School, set to open this fall, to Shas Ti Secondary School. The name change is meant as an act of reconciliation with the Lheidli T’enneh.