How to Rename Your Public School

Atthe very end of the 2021/22 school year the <a href="https://www.vsb.bc.ca/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Vancouver School Board </a>(VSB) launched a new <a href="https://www.vsb.bc.ca/District/Departments/Office_of_the_Superintendent/Administrative-Procedures-Manual/Administrative%20Procedures%20Manual%20Library/Section%20500/AP_541_zAppendixA_Re-Naming_Existing_School_Facilities.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Administrative Policy</a> (AP) that set up a framework to rename schools (and other buildings owned by the board). Never before has it been possible to change the name of an existing school. There are a lot of articles aout why this is a problem. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-school-names-data-2021-1.6085806" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Here’s one from CBC</a> and <a href="https://www.thewestendjournal.ca/blog/2022/9/1/west-end-voices" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">here’s one I wrote</a>. So far the policy has been piloted to re-name two schools in Vancouver. Our school is the first, post pilot, to go through the new codified process. For context, our school is named after a guy who ran concentration camps in Africa and decimated indigenous populations in India and Afghanistan. While he never came to Canada this made him enough of a hero of the English Empire to name our school after a bit over a hundred years ago. For what it’s worth<a href="https://www.vsb.bc.ca/schools/lord-kitchener/Pages/Default.aspx" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank"> Lord Kitchener</a> was the one he sent to do most of the implimentation. <a href="https://ianrowebot.medium.com/how-to-rename-your-public-school-2dfd6a89fb7f">Learn More</a>