Is racism alive at the York Region District School Board? Renaming of school raises eyebrows

BY PAUL JUNOR

In many ways, there were many positive expectations and hope that the York Region District School Board (YRDSB) would be able to make progress in 2021. Unfortunately, another incident arose related to attempts to block the renaming of Vaughan Secondary School after work was done to facilitate it.

The decision to rename the school came after it was unearthed that Benjamin Vaughan, after whom the school is named, was a slave owner. There was a lot of work done by community groups and activists, to facilitate the YRDSB agreeing to change the name of the school after extensive community consultation. Subsequently, after the process of requesting name submissions, there was a 42% support for naming the school after Hodan Nalayeh, a reporter of Somalian background who was killed in 2019.

Parents of Black Children (PoBC), an advocacy group, sent out an email on February 3^rd, 2021 titled, “We Need Your Help: Racist Trustees in the YRDSB.” The email revealed that Trustee, David Sherman had decided to subvert the renaming process through:

• Questioning the legitimacy of the votes for this name suggesting there were ” outsiders” who exerted undue influence
• Going so far as to publicly post an email from ANCHOR (formerly VACA) on his personal Twitter account in an attempt to shame the organization for respectfully reaching out to him in an effort to explain why his words and actions are harmful to the black community
• Suggesting a name of his own choosing, without input from the community consultation process

It was subsequently revealed that during a YRDSB Board of Trustee meeting on January 28^th, 2021, Dr Elizabeth Sinclair indicated that Trustee Sherman’s actions were disconcerting and it undermined the community consultation process and consequently negatively impacted the African-Canadian community.

Furthermore, Board Chair Cynthia Cordova raised concerns about the tone of Trustee Sinclair at the time these concerns were raised, and the fact that the motion for completing the process and renaming the school did not pass.

PoBC has indicated that it is vital that the black community fight back despite:

• The fact that changing the name of a school after a slave-owner shouldn’t be this hard
• The fact that it was primarily the black community who was harmed by the original name
• The overwhelming support for the name Nalayeh Secondary School
• Outcry from black community members (and even the only black trustee in the YRDSB) about the harm this process is causing
• It is clear that the YRDSB, Director Louise Siriano, the trustees Cynthia, David Sherman, and others have no plans to honour the votes of students, parents and community members

In light of these developments PoBC, which was formed to, “Support and advocate on behalf of black students and their parents” has decided to send a letter to the YRDSB with four specific demands: 

1. Vaughan Secondary School immediately renamed to Houdan Nalageh Secondary as per the community wishes
2. Trustee Sherman must issue an immediate apology to the community and resign from his position as trustee
3. Trustee Cordova issued an immediate apology to Dr Sinclair, and resign from her position as board chair
4. The Ministry of Education performed an inquiry into the rampant racism present in the YRDSB Board of Trustees, including previous incidents with other Trustees

PoBC is calling on residents in York Region to email the YRDSB to express their displeasure and to pressure it to adopt the new name. Racism is alive in YRDSB.