Plans to rename North Bay’s Chippewa Secondary School are put on hold | CBC News

The Near North District School Board has put plans to rename Chippewa Secondary School in North Bay, Ont. on pause.

Late last year the school board started a process to change the school’s name because the name had been transformed into a slur by some students.

“Current students and staff understand that the school was named without consultation with or consideration for the Indigenous community,” the Near North District School board said in a press release at the time.

“The renaming and rebranding process is not intended to erase the school’s history but to face it and do better in the future.”

But a report presented to the school board on Oct. 10 concluded, “The name Chippewa is not offensive as was claimed in the December 13, 2022 report.”

It also noted concerns about the name were not brought forward by any Indigenous people or groups.

A resolution from the board said plans to rename the school should be suspended until appropriate Indigenous  consultation and collaboration informs the board of trustees.

After it was announced there were plans to rename the school, more than 3,000 people signed a petition asking the school board to keep the current name.

What’s in a name?

Lauren Beck, a professor at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, and the Canada Research Chair in Intercultural Encounter, said people attach a lot of importance to the names of institutions like schools.

“Some of them might be very keen on Chippewa because they graduated from that school, they have a diploma from that school and they wanted their kids raised through that school,” she said.

For many people, Beck said the names of institutions run even deeper.

“If you change the name of the school I went to, how does the name change reflect upon my values as a person, particularly if the name is now considered problematic and outdated? Some people might feel a sense of guilt associated with that even though they didn’t name the school themselves,” she said.

Beck said school boards should have naming policies in place to help avoid any controversies.

She added any controversy around the name could eventually resolve itself, because schools don’t last forever.

“It may resolve itself when the school’s life cycle comes to an end,” Beck said.