Two Orange County schools (OCS) are undergoing a renaming process in order to abandon their ties to white supremacy. The school board originally voted in February to change the namesakes of Cameron Park Elementary and C.W. Stanford Middle – both of which contributed to the marginalization of people of color.

A school renaming committee consisting of 18 member met last week to begin finalizing name suggestions. Members include parents, teachers and staff led by the principals of Cameron Park Elementary and C.W. Stanford Middle.

Dr. Dena Keeling is the chief equity officer for OCS. She said the principals on the committee asked for impartial facilitators from the Dispute Settlement Center to lead the meetings so they could be involved in the discussion. Keeling also said the committee voted to work to rename both schools together.

“The superintendent recommends that the Board of Education receive [the] information and approve the revision to the school renaming process that it is now one school renaming committee versus two and that we have the addition of meeting facilitators,” Keeling said.

One of the meeting facilitators working with the School Renaming Committee is Maggie Chotus of the Dispute Settlement Center. She shared some of the name suggestions from the May 4 meeting.

“River Walk, St. Mary’s, Community Park, River Park, Arbor Park, Spirit Branch, River Bend, Occaneechi, Occaneechi Park, and Carolina Pines were the names that were identified at the last meeting,” Chotus said.

Chotus said a decision has not yet been made on which names to submit to the board of education.

“No consensus has been made,” Chotus said. “We are still sort of in the brainstorming looking to see where common interests lay for committee members.”

The district’s renaming policy stated preference will be shown for names with a recognized geographic or historic significance. The district will use their discretion to consider whether the schools’ mascots and colors will change as well.

The next steps for the committee is to finalize three name choices to submit to the board of education for review. The next schools renaming committee meeting is May 18.

OCS’ proposed timeline is to have both Cameron Park Elementary and C.W. Stanford Middle fully renamed before the start of the academic year in the fall.

 

Photo via ABC11.

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