(Photo: Anglophone East District Education Council)
A new name for JMA Armstrong High/Salisbury Middle School has been chosen.
Principal Tammy Constantine attended last night’s Anglophone East District Education Council meeting.
She expressed disappointment regarding the backlash in the decision to change the school name to Salisbury Regional, “The amount of negativity, misinformation and hateful messages over social media was quite frankly, very shocking. Although we expected and understood that not everyone would be happy with the final results, it was very upsetting that community members were targetted with hateful messages for serving as a volunteer on this community group.”
Constantine says this name change process started back in 2019 in an effort to eliminate confusion created by having two facilities under one roof, “In February, school administration asked the Parent School Support Committee to investigate the process of a name change for two schools to one. This request was made for multiple reasons. One was related to the confusion of having one building represented by two school names. By not having the high school and middle school united under one name, it creates communication difficulties.”
She says the official process for renaming was followed, and has the support of hundreds of students and staff.
“The committee which I was a part of, followed unequivocally followed the process that was provided to us by our school district and province for a name change. The Assistant Deputy Minister approved of the name change in October 2021.”
She says student input was solicited and there were focus groups at both middle and high school levels, along with staff, “Students wanted people to know where they were from. No one knows where JMA is, but they do know where Salisbury.”
The official name change was supposed to go into effect in the fall of 2021.
“I would implore the DEC to put this matter to rest by allowing the work that was done to stand in the chosen name of Salisbury Regional School to remain. This new name represents a consolidation of both schools under one roof, one administration and one educational community. I would also implore the DEC to provide suggestions to EECD on the Policy 409 so that no Administrator or committee should have to endure the bullying and vilification that has been underway since Salisbury Regional was announced,” Constantine added.
