Dear Editor
This letter is in regards to the school name and the trustees. As most of you know I am not in favor of the name or the process taken to pick the name. Our comnunity school should have had the community as a whole to decide on if the name should change and what it should change to. The only places to vote were on facebook on the schools pages, one which is a closed group meaning not anyone could access it. This is not putting it out there, in my opinion, and many did not even know about the change until asked to sign the petition, which was ignored, my opinion, by the school district trustees, even though there were more signatures than votes, and I never did hear directly from them on their decision even though I was one of two who dropped the petition off and asked to be contacted. I didn’t find out that they were not considering the petition until it was in the paper like everyone else.
One thing they said they wanted in a name was something that represents all communities, including our native communities. I have emailed asking how this name represents all communities and have not received an answer. I have resent it many times in hopes for some type of answer and have only received and email detailing their process in picking the name, not a word on how it represents the communities involved in our Ashcroft school. How is this right, to ignore a simple question asked by a community member wanting to understand better on decision they made? Maybe if they were to explain the reasoning behind choosing the name that didn’t have the most votes people could better understand.
Considering the top name voted for was added on to the list after people started voting and some stated that it is the one they would have voted for if it was there from the begining I’m still trying to figure out how they feel the process was done right and fair. Also those who didn’t see the voting online who signed the petition also stated they would have voted for that name. So, in my opinion, they never intended to go by the votes, they had decided before hand and had to cover their butts by having some type of vote no matter how hidden the vote was.
Trisha Lambert
Ashcroft