Coast Salish name changes approved for Nanaimo sports field & elementary school

A 30 day public consultation process was launched on June 1 to gauge how the community at large felt about replacing the facility names in favour of new titles, which SD 68 staff and trustees felt was a necessary step toward reconciliation.

Just prior to trustees officially endorsing the new names, supt. Scott Saywell said the District has made numerous steps toward reconciliation with local Indigenous peoples in recent years.

“This is no small item before us this evening and I believe that the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name,” Saywell told the virtually conducted meeting.

A staff report showed more than 700 online responses were made during the month-long consultation process.

Fifty-two per cent of respondents were in favour of changing the school name, while 47 per cent agreed with replacing the title of the multi-sport field next to Nanaimo District Secondary School (NDSS).

An SD 68 staff report noted pronunciation concerns for both facilities were common themes, while some people mistakenly believed NDSS itself was being re-named.

syuẁén’ct principal Diane Charles told the meeting their students took a lead role in renaming the school, who were curious about where the Coal Tyee name came from.

“Which led to this whole awareness that there’s a story here that’s only ever been one-sided and that we needed to find out what the other version of this story was,” Charles said.

principal Diane Charles said her students fully embraced their school re-naming process, which she called a memorable and amazing process. (SD 68)

A prior SD 68 staff report stated Coal Tyee was seen as a tragic figure by Snuneymuxw First Nations peoples whose interactions with local Indigenous people’s at the time led to colonizing the area.

Charles expanded on how their entire student population participated in learning more about the history of their school’s original name and Snuneymuxw culture.

“They say bar-none ‘We need to get this right, the name has to be right’…I have not heard one negative comment from any of our school communities and I’ve put it out there weekly.

The price tag of changing the names of the facilities is estimated to cost SD 68 in the range of $20,000.

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ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes

by Ian Holmes

Coast Salish name changes approved for Nanaimo sports field & elementary school

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