Neither the chief of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation nor the vice-chair of the Kelly Road Parent Advisory Committee are happy with the School District 57 board’s decision for the new Hart high school to have the dual name of Shas Ti Secondary and Kelly Road Secondary.
Chief Clayton Pountney said the dual name will divide students and the community for years to come.
"In the coming decades when you have a kid calling the school Shas Ti and everyone else is saying Kelly Road, you will see the fight keep going," he said. "If they had just went with one we could deal with the aftermath now but this aftermath may last decades.”
Chief Poutney and Lheidli T’enneh elders had made a request to the board on Feb. 25 to name the new school Shas Ti Secondary School. The trustees unanimously voted after that presentation to begin the process of renaming the new $44.3 million school that opens in September to replace the old Kelly Road Secondary.
The request came on the heels of the Lheidli T’enneh hosting its first balhats, the First Nation’s version of a potlatch, in 73 years last November. The Lheidli T’enneh’s relationship with School District 57 was celebrated during the balhats.
"The board of education has betrayed our nation, our students and our members," Pountney said. "All I can say for sure is that our relationship with SD 57 has been damaged by those board members who changed their vote and it will take a very long time to heal."
Like many people on both sides of the high school name issue, including some of the school board trustees, Pountney said the naming process was flawed.
"We'd like to be included from the very beginning," he said. "That's one of the main pieces. So when you're in the planning stages, reach out - this is our territory - and it's actually kind of rude not to."
Lotte Andersen, vice chair of the Kelly Road parent advisory committee, said she thinks the name should have remained Kelly Road Secondary School and found the whole process peculiar.
Part of the community engagement process was an online questionnaire. The survey found 68 per cent of the 2,707 respondents said the new school should keep the name Kelly Road while 13 per cent supported changing the name to Shas Ti, while another 13 per cent agreed to a blended name.
"It's very odd that when you have a community who has a school that they really really appreciate and have worked hard to make better and create a really wonderful community that the usual democracy and listening to people was just cancelled," Andersen said.
The dual name doesn't do anything for reconciliation, she added. If it were a brand new school, not a replacement school then it could begin fresh with an original name so it could build its own history in the community, Andersen said.
"Kelly Road is the name of the school and it has been for 60 years," Andersen said. "You can't change the name of a school that is so close to people's hearts."
