The renaming of Abbotsford Traditional Middle School and Abbotsford Traditional Secondary School to the more streamlined name of Abbotsford Traditional School has been slowed down.
At the Dec. 7 Abbotsford board of education meeting, it was announced that the request came from the school, along with parents and staff.
According to that meeting, the school community stated this will lead to the school being viewed as one school and not two separate entities. They were also planning to adopt the Titans moniker for all the sports teams and removed the Middle School Sabres nickname.
The impression from the Dec. 7 meeting was that the new name has been chosen going forward, but the Jan. 18 board of education meeting has revealed a new timeline and a slowed down process will be used moving forward.
According to the Jan. 18 meeting, it was an error by the school’s administration as not all of the executive members of the school were aware of the proposed name change and it was exuberance on the administration’s part.
Starting this month, a steering committee made up of students, parents, staff and administration will be created and a thoughtexchange engagement will be launched to collect feedback on the proposed name change. February will see more engagement to collect feedback on the school mascot, colours and logo for the sports teams.
In March a parent forum will be planned to communicate the status of the school name and continued discussion about the mascot, logo, colours and dress code. The steering committee will then finalize all the findings and present an update to the board of education in April.
It’s expected that the Grade 6 to 12 campus will come into effect upon completing seismic upgrades in 2023.
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