A short list of names for the city’s former high school has been drawn up and there aren’t many surprises.
The names Rossland School, Rossland Public School and the Golden City School have joined Alpine City School and Ross Thompson School as five of the 10 names on the short list compiled by the School Renaming Committee.
The former Rossland Secondary School—which now houses kindergarten to Grade 9 students—was in need of a new moniker after School District 20 chose to severe the senior grades from the facility and ship the students to Trail last year.
When the committee of eight was formed in October the call went out to the public for some ideas on what to call the school. Several hundred submissions were collected through ballot boxes at the library, the credit union and other places downtown, as well as online.
A total of 48 unique names were collected by the committee from Dec. 1 to Jan. 15. One committee member said the process—and the two committee meetings—have met with mixed feelings by the community.
“It was such a long process of potentially losing K-12 in Rossland … that some people are still reeling a little from that,” she said. “So some people lost a little interest in the (renaming process), while others are excited.”
Most people seemed keen to make a new name and a new start for the school, she said, and have been forthcoming in their input.
The committee has now shortlisted the name ideas submitted and is asking the community for input by Tuesday, Feb. 4 (3 p.m.). People are asked to 'vote' for their preferred name or names via a brief survey provided through the ThoughtStream website.
If people did not participate in the first step, they may still take part in this prioritization. The committee requests that people only complete this survey once per household.
People may get a link twice in the effort to reach as many community members as possible.
The criteria for the new name were as follows: Reflects the current grade configuration; reflects that the school is a public school; allows for future configurations changes (kindergarten to Grade 7, kindergarten to Grade 12); has similar ring/familiarity to RSS; is realistic for the community (all segments of the community are comfortable with the name); is connected to the Rossland community culture (history, arts, outdoor, etc); and is easy for people of all ages to say.
Once the committee has further input it will reconvene to make a final list of five names to take to the board of education on Feb. 17.
Here is the link to give thoughts on the names: http://thotstr.ca/sd20/TnC. This process will take about five minutes.
The names on the shortlist include:
- Rossland Royals School
- Rossland School
- Rossland School for Sustainability
- Alpine City School
- Rossland Public School
- Ross Thompson School
- Golden City School
- Rossland Thompson School
- Monashee Mountain School