The Thames Valley District School Board is turning to the public for help naming four of its elementary schools.
The names are being sought for three new schools and one existing one.
The new schools are in Woodstock and northwest and southwest London. They are all currently under construction and not slated to open until September 2025 (London schools) and the 2026/27 school year (Woodstock school). The $28.7 million northwest London school is being built on the southwest corner of the Sunningdale Road West and Fair Oaks Boulevard intersection, while the $28.8 million southwest facility will be on the corner of Pack Road and Regiment Road. The $25.6 million Woodstock school is being placed at 717 Knights Lane.
Lord Roberts French Immersion Public School in London is the existing school in need of a new name. It was among 12 schools in the Thames Valley board flagged for a renaming by a review committee created in the fall of 2021. The decision to move forward with the renaming of the Princess Avenue school was supported by board trustees at a meeting in January.
The public can submit potential names for the four schools through the board's public input webpage until 12 a.m. on April 11.
Name submissions are required to meet one or more of the following criteria:
Any name connected to local Indigenous Peoples, history, and traditions that is not the name of an individual or family.
The name, if any, which applies to the area in which the school is located.
The name of the street on which the school is located.
The name of the district or area the school is to serve.
Values or principles
A naming selection committee will review all submissions after the April 11 deadline and narrow it down to three recommended options. Those three names will then be sent to school board trustees for approval before school communities are asked to vote for their favourite. A timeline for when that will take place has not yet been announced.
The public board's call for name submissions comes on the same day the London District Catholic School Board announced the name for its newest school. The 507-student building is being constructed off Burloak Drive, near Hyde Park Road and Sunningdale Road in northwest London and is scheduled to open in early 2025. It will be named St. Gabriel Catholic Elementary School, the board has revealed.