Ryerson public school in Cambridge will be on the list of schools to be renamed

When students return to Ryerson Public School in September, a recommendation to rename the Preston school may already be underway.

The ad hoc committee tasked by the Waterloo Region District School Board with reviewing school names, mascots and logos deemed to be harmful when viewed through “an anti-racist, decolonial and trauma-informed lens” has already discussed Ryerson PS among others in their work to bring a list of renaming recommendations to trustees by the end of the year.

Nicole Robinson, the school board’s equity and inclusion officer with an Indigenous focus, sits on the 22-member committee.

In an email response to CambridgeToday.ca, she said the committee hasn’t made a formal decision yet, but confirmed Ryerson PS has come up in preliminary conversations and she expects it to make the list.

Ryerson school would join Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School in Waterloo on the list of schools the committee wants to rename.

The committee has already stated it will begin public consultation to rename SJAM as soon as possible.

Although Ryerson school opened in 2010 at the end of Grand Valley Drive, the original Cambridge school bearing the name opened in 1964.

The school's namesake, Egerton Ryerson is considered the chief architect of public education in Ontario, but he also had a central role in the development of Canada's residential school system starting in the mid-1800s.

He believed Indigenous children should not only be taught separately, but converted to Christianity while in the care of residential schools, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

It's estimated more than 6,000 Indigenous children died while in the care of the residential school system, many of them after suffering abuse and neglect. 

Earlier this year, Ryerson University in downtown Toronto became the flashpoint for calls to rename all institutions that bear his name.

In early June, the statue of Ryerson was defaced, beheaded and later torn down in protest after the remains of 215 children were discovered in unmarked graves at a site next to the residential school in Kamloops B.C.

Since then, calls to rename the school have only gotten louder.  

The Thames Valley District School Board is considering renaming Ryerson Public School and Sir John A. Public School in London, Ont. for the same reasons.