001preparing the live stream all right so again we can all chat um so if you have any questions or thoughts while we're in the midst of this looks like youtube is ready so i'm going to start the webinar i'm going to mute my microphone and go off camera and then so again we can all chat um there we go um all right so i'm going to click start and then we will be broadcasting so you've got this good luck everybody i'm excited to hear your content all right welcome everyone all right sorry about that i have a little pop-up on my screen welcome everyone we're just uh having a few more people join us and then we will get started tonight is all right good evening hello uh thank you for being here my name
002is lara villama and i am the head of community uh excuse me head of community and outreach experience at the framingham public library i just want to welcome you for being here tonight um my name is thank you again for being here with us tonight i'm excited to kick off this event and introduce you to several people who will walk you through the details surrounding the renaming of the woodrow wilson elementary school before we dive in i want to explain how you can access live interpretation in either spanish or portuguese on zoom and we're also fortunate to be able to offer asl interpretation if you're utilizing asl please be sure to pin both of our interpreters noelle and julie when they're visible on the screen in spanish before i explain the interpretation we're going to
003launch a brief language indicator poll when this shows up on zoom please select your language preferences it's helpful for our interpreters to know if anyone is listening but we'll interpret either way in the event that someone joins us late and would like to utilize this feature when we turn the interpretation function on you'll be prompted to choose either spanish or portuguese by clicking the globe at the bottom of your zoom screen we'll save dedicated time at the end to review and translate spanish or portuguese questions submitted in the questionnaire espanol portuguese all right and could i have all of our interpreters introduce themselves and also have you invite attendees who wish to listen in spanish or portuguese to make their selections in portuguese all right just giving everyone a minute to make their choices and
004i'm going to do a quick test so rosanna and marcos can you give me a thumbs up if you can hear me oh rosanna can you hear me i see thumbs up from marcos all right few technical difficulties everyone give us just a moment okay got a thumbs up from rosanna one more for marcos make sure awesome i think we're in business um let's keep our test going can i hear both rosanna and marco see if we can hear you beehler associate professor of history from the framingham history center laura rankin assistant director and of course myself lara villama here at the framingham public library and so with those introductions i'm going to turn it over to priscilla souza to provide the official welcome and to present tonight's agenda welcome all it is a wonderful
005honor to be here my name is priscilla souza i'm a member of the framingham school committee i am the first brazilian to be elected to the framingham school committee a former framingham public school student and the chair of the equity inclusion and diversity school kim hi and i'm also a wilson alumna i've been on the committee that's been working to plan the last year with all the events going on in the country there was a lot of attention brought to racial equity in our communities so myself and a few other students started doing some research into the history of our country's leaders we learned about some of the unfortunate things that president wilson did that we aren't proud of because they don't represent our values or our diversity so i talked to a few of
006my classmates and we also connected with the black student union at fhs to put our ideas together and then took those ideas to our superintendent dr tremblay and principal di demodiza wilson and a few other administrators who put together our committee and began this project we're so open to hearing student opinions a conversation that started amongst a few students we've heard from many students because we want this to be a community project there was actually a petition created by a student layla rivers with her father to change the name of the school the petition reached over 1500 signatures so we've been seeing a lot of students weighing in on the topic generate a new name that accurately represents who we are collectively teachers at wilson stood up to our superintendent of feminine public schools dr
007tremblay good evening everyone and thank you so much i'm so pleased to be here this evening and just by offering some some initial reflections so lara i want to first commend you foundation tonight and then generally these lessons that we've learned uh you know since since we closed school and uh last march and got to get used to working in a virtual environment as best we can and i think that you know the silver lining in some of this is the ways in which we've made conversations accessible to our entire community and i'm really awfully proud of that and i'm just grateful to be among all of you this evening to make that possible and accessible to so many in our community i'm also really pleased to have student voice and student agency as the
008driver behind this work uh that's something i'm particularly proud of as the school superintendent and uh i also had the opportunity to work in and to appoint principal demarias who will be i'll be introducing in just a moment but i wanted to offer those initial reflections in the last year and i do hope that this now is finding everyone well and in good health and with optimism and hope for what's to come because as we plan to come back to school and reopen uh over a year later there's excitement in the air and this is part of that same excitement this is part of that same journey in this last year there's been a lot of reflection to what this community can do when we come together and my thanks to all who are involved
009in tonight's presentation but also to help share in this journey for us and i should tell you that framingham for the last few months over the last year really but in the last few months in particular has really been committed to this conversation around becoming an anti-racist school community we have a lot of a long road ahead of us and for us to simply denounce acts of hatred or racism is one important step we can take but for us to actually make actionable impactful change and to make a difference something so bold as to changing the name of a school to reflect who we are and what our values are again is testament to what can happen be in a school where we're going through morais i'm going to practice a little bit of my
010portuguese so marcos i'm giving you your small break now and you can correct me at the end um so a little bit about woodrow wilson you see this beautiful slide i'm going to start off with the quilt you see on the left which is an ib quilt this was created by one of our third grade students in the year 2015 and that was when we first became an international pyp baccalaureate school which basically means we're part of a prestigious program and we have been endorsed as part of an elementary education where our students benefit from this primary years program that we have and woodrow wilson as you know we're extremely diverse and vibrant school made up of a large population of primarily brazilians but several other populations as well and a huge large population of
011english language learners we of course value by literacy tri-literacy and you know even more all of our students participate in bi-literacy growth through the access of portuguese whether that is through dual language a 50 50 model a transitional bilingual program a tbe model or our sei program where they take portuguese one time a week so our goal is from kindergarten to fifth grade our students will graduate with not only english but of course portuguese as well and they will continue that journey as a pyp ib school our students experience what's called transdisciplinary learning basically where they're making connections across and beyond all subject areas so those connections our teachers make with them through curriculum as you can see that's the second picture in the middle of the presentation is our beautiful cafeteria and within that
012cafeteria you'll see large flags representative of our exclusive you know inclusivity of all cultures and respect for all of them so very much fitting that we are thinking about very deeply at a time right now where there's lots of social pressure and things happening in the news that really ask one to reflect um you know the name woodrow wilson it needs to be changed and so the community communities coming together on behalf of the renaming committee who's worked very hard to bring us to this point i wanted to thank all of you for your support i'm really looking forward to the journey ahead we really need all voices to come together support our school and continue this work and we hope to come out with a new name very very soon so on that note
013obrigada pelosi apoy and i would like to introduce miss laura rankin who's assistant director of the framingham history center thank you all right so tonight i'm going to share my presentation district streets and luminaries in early history of framingham schools i'm going to try to talk slow all right so i'm going to share a brief history of freemium public schools from its very beginnings up to widow wilson elementary and then we'll dive into the background of the school as we move through the slides you'll begin to notice the way in which the town name schools from districts to locations and street names and finally after freemium's bicentennial in 1900 prominent people were honored i also want to point out that they're an outstanding number of framingham schools and i've either purposely left out a school
014because i did not have an image for it or there's a gap in my research framing was incorporated as a town in children at this time received brief informal education from their mothers at home if a child typically a boy showed promise in their studies and families had the means they were sent to cities to be educated the true beginning of formal education in town was in 1706 with the appointment of deacon joshua hemingway as school master since no schoolhouse had yet been built he taught students in his home and side note hemingway elementary was named after this first school master of framingham the first schoolhouse was planned in to the west of the town's meeting house on main street it was to be 22 feet long by 16 feet wide with a fireplace for
015heat at both ends it took nearly three years to complete with the developing town when the developing town outgrew both the schoolhouse and meetinghouse the buildings were removed and the land became the old burying ground or main street cemetery next time you're walking the old burying ground try to find this black during the first 40 years of formal education it was voted that the school year would be 12-month schedule in which girls were taught in the summer and boys in the winter it was in 17 in the 1700s nearly everyone lived up the land and the boys needed to help their parents during the summer growing season in those days teachers were very strict students would be punished for merely looking out a window or for speaking when not called upon it was also common
016to separate boys and girls in different parts of the room or by floors as the center common other areas of town were developed the school system changed to the district system in 1749. this cropped image on the screen was from a painting that shows a little brick building on the right side of the center common which was the center district schoolhouse directly across the common was this yellow brick schoolhouse behind a line of trees it was known as the academy building the academy a private institution established in taught its students modern subjects such as science and mathematics the school welcomed both school welcomed all students upon equal terms and it was the starting point for many of framingham's most prominent citizens fast forward to the 1830s this map shows us 10 of the 11 district
017schools i added in the 11th one for you on the end i won't go through all of them but my next four slides will showcase them this is one of two surviving school houses from the 1800s the bottom portion to the left was added in 1964 when the friends meeting at cambridge bought it it is still in beautiful condition today more research needs to be done on this schoolhouse but it's located in park's corner named for the park families that lived in the area which is now in coburnville neighborhood known as rice's end schoolhouse number 11 for the rice families that lived in the area this schoolhouse was built in 1852 and it was converted to a single residence after world war ii it's located at 315 old connecticut path near bj's in the ymca
018once this building was no longer a school in 1967 it was used as a grange hall and later a scout house it sadly burned and was demolished in and is now the site of knobscott park pollinator garden established by the framingham garden club jumping back a few years in our timeline in 1830 excuse me in 1833 town meeting members voted to build a new town hall called the village hall that would serve several purposes including a school the old one-room brick school house at the center was completely overwhelmed with 177 students and the addition of two school rooms would alleviate this overflow here is one of the classrooms in 1856 led by miss lucy ann sanderson it was four years later in 1837 that the yellow brick academy building was replaced with the stone building
019pictured on the right which still sits on the common today 20 years later freeman's first high school known as the center high school was built right next to the old academy on vernon street the academy transitioned from a private school to public in 1851 and served as an elementary school until when it was turned over to the freemium historical and natural history society now the freemium history center it has been a museum ever since and it houses many artifacts and archives the center high school was used for 49 years before it was moved to pleasant street and became gordon's clothing store many framingham girls and boys bought outfits for their school dances there today it is the coldwell banker office at the same time a high school formed at the center saxonville also gained a
020high school this wooden structure was located just yards behind the current stapleton elementary the main portion of stapleton was built in 1922 and the wooden high school was demolished over several years lincoln primary and intermediate schools were once located on the exact site of the main branch of the framingham public library this image circa 1920 is looking north across pearl street at the two schools between the then sanger and lincoln streets it was later used for school administration and maintenance until it was torn down in 1977 for the site of the library jumping to the 1880s there were 1400 students spread out between 11 district schools 3 grammar schools and 2 high schools the hollis street school served as an elementary school from 1880 to 1928 when the memorial school replaced it lockerville school was
021established at 11 house street in 1889 to keep pace with the growth of the town and the increase in school population it served grades one through four until it closed in 1933 when the school population decreased it was used by human service organization called project accept for a time it was later demolished in 1980 moving on to larger schools lawrence street school built in 1905 was originally used as an elementary school and then held special education classes for about 10 years the building today is part of the high school as the eugene thayer campus when the heist when the center high school closed and was moved to pleasant street the town needed to find land for a new high school this building underwent five different name changes over the years it was the freemium high
022school from 1907 to 1958 then it became the freemium junior high just a few years later in 1964 it was renamed at the lincoln junior high and then the farley junior high also called the farley middle school in honor of judge lewis barley late justice of the first district court of south middlesex county the final name change came in 1974 when framing when danforth art took over the original part of the building and the town was used the new edition for offices due to the age of the building danforth art had to make a quick move in 2016 and found a new home at the old maynard school building on vernon street where they have a beautiful museum and studio space today the space that held the center high school was not empty long the
023jonathan maynard elementary school was dedicated in 1915 and the architecture resembles that of independence hall in philadelphia the school was named in honor of one of freemium's earliest citizens jonathan maynard maynard was a soldier in the american revolution and fought at the battles of bunker hill saratoga stillwater and west point he also sat on a number of committees for the new town of framingham and was even the first postmaster of the town this is the main building of stapleton that we know today the school began as a junior high but joined the elementary school family in 1958. dr mary stapleton was the first woman principal of the junior high in the 1950s and when the school was expanded in 1980 it was renamed after the beloved educator the roosevelt elementary school named in honor of
024the 26th president was located on fay road in coburnville it was called the most sightly of any of our school buildings at the time for its detailed architecture and location on a small rise the school closed in 1980 and was used for senior housing for a time but it was eventually demolished in 2002 all of this history brings us to whitter wilson elementary school it was built in 1928 on leland street in south framingham near the shoreborne line and opened to students on may 6 1929 the school as we know was named after the 20th president who died in 1924 which is significant to our story of the school 1924 was the year the sherborne annexation was signed in 1923 the town of sherborne voted three to one to transfer the northwest corner of their
025town to framingham the transfer went into effect on january 1 1925 and 565 acres of north shore burn returned over to the town of framingham there were three main reasons for this transfer of land one due to the industrial boom of south framingham in the 1890s there's an increased demand for new worker housing south of beaver brook dam in the departure board called sherbronville later called north sherborn the red dot on the map is over the neighborhood of sherburne row to represent the location of leland street kendall ave and beaver street as we can see it's right next to the framingham north shoreborne line which was filling up with downtown framingham workers at the time two this new housing brought more and more families to the area 600 in total in sherborne's old beaver street
026schoolhouse was far too small for the over 100 children in need of an education three lastly this part of sherborne was three miles from the town center and they lacked the funds to bring water system to this neighborhood so for these reasons the dotted line on this map became the new boundary of framingham when framingham inherited the old beaver street schoolhouse not only did it lack water but it also had no electricity or blackboards one of the first things framingham did was build a modern brick school nearby the old schoolhouse was converted into an apartment building in 1947. the red brick wooder wilson element the red brick wilson school of 1929 was replaced in 1998 with a larger facility also bearing the name of the 28th president soon there will be a new headline after
027this renaming maybe it will read second chapter ends in wilson history there are so many more schools we could talk about and so i've listed the remaining schools up to present day on my last slide we'll take a few seconds to look at all the names i'm not going to go over them all but at this time i'll introduce dr lori behler associate professor of history at freedom state university to share a bit about woodrow wilson the president so we're going to pause for just one second everybody if that's okay um i have to do a quick switch the spanish interpretation rosanna um bernardo said there was a little trouble so i'm gonna invite him to join so everybody can just take a quick minute for water and we will get it set up for
028your section lori just just a couple minutes really quickly sure thank you uh should i begin sorry just one more second thank you thank you for your question no worries okay we're just about there um rosanna i'm gonna send you a chat i'm gonna have bernardo jump in just for a couple minutes there was like a technical difficulty we were having trouble hearing you so i'll chat with you in just a second okay all right let me adjust the uh interpretation and we are going to be good to get started just one second everybody thank you all for your patience one second so sorry go back oh [Applause] baby all right um i have made a change in the interpretation can we just check to see if it's working marcos can you hear me bernardo
029thumbs up if you can hear me okay i can't hear you so i think we're back up and running i apologize um all right i'm gonna go back to my uh slides and dr buehler you will be ready to pick up where we left off sure thank you so much so okay all right so i'm ready to go right for good all interpreters are go okay um so hi everybody uh i'm just gonna show you a couple of slides uh i put together some images uh i didn't want to give you a whole rundown of woodrow wilson's life i wanted to really just show you what he was famous for why they named him name the school after him in 1929 and then why we're re-examining his legacy and changing the name of the school
030so um i'm doing this from a historian's perspective so bear with me as we go through the picture so do you mind clicking to the next one thanks so woodrow wilson was famous for his actions as president of the united states after world war one he was president longer he was president from 1913 to but he's most well known for the 14 points which you may have learned about in school if you're especially if you're still in school and trying to develop the league of nations and he was celebrated he he really put the united states on the map of global diplomacy and was celebrated and so i just wanted to give two examples of that and one is the picture on the left is a cover for a sheet music for a song about
031woodrow wilson called the whole world's proud of you um held by the library of congress you can actually go and play this song if you're if you're up for it um but it it it shows the the respect and the celebration celebratory nature of of the world at the time 1919 and people were happy that the war was over as well um and then you can see in the parade in paris during the paris peace conference wilson was celebrated with a sign you know a lit up sign across the road so he was celebrated because he was considered a defender of democracy meaning he tried to at the end of world war one establish a set of norms for europe to help them create new democracies in countries that hadn't been democracies before and he
032he made a big splash and he was celebrated but that's just one side of so let's look at him another side of him if you wouldn't mind going thank you he at the same time and people are complex history is complex at the same time he was also a staunch defender of segregation there were is a quote at the bottom uh something that he said to uh civil rights activists who we'll talk about in a second segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit trying to appease people who came to protest his segregationist policies so segregation is the separation of whites and black people in um in america and under woodrow wilson his administration created segregated federal segregated federal government so all of the agencies and federal buildings across dc and around the country were
033suddenly in 1913 when he became president created into segregated sections and so we had waiting rooms here in this picture from the federal health services office building in dc but every building in dc that was a federal government building had separate bathrooms separate dining halls separate waiting rooms and so on and in addition to that the power structures of the federal government were influenced because um that you couldn't have a black and uh someone hire up a black over the someone who was white underneath them and so it also meant that many uh black civil civil servants working in the federal government were demoted uh and also physically separated living sorry working in separate halls separate wings of an office so were it was really demoralizing and humiliating um at the same time woodrow wilson
034uh had written about the south he was a writer he wrote about the ku klux klan in very romantic language he showed a he had a public showing of the film birth of a nation which is a silent film where they talk basically celebrating the founding of the ku klux klan and he had in 1915 a showing in the white house of this film and the director of the film griffiths actually included a quote of woodrow wilson's in the film and this is here i'm not going to read it but it gives you a sense of woodrow wilson's uh perception of the ku klux klan an outright racist organization and he was proud enough to show this in the white house and you sometimes hear people say well those were the times you know that's
035how people thought but actually no no um do you mind going to oh do you want me to read the translation um so it says and this is from woodrow wilson's writing so this is what was put in the film the white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation until at last their had sprung into existence a great ku klux klan a veritable empire of the south to protect the southern country which is disturbing to read aloud so if we go to the next slide when we're ready um i wanted to show that it wasn't just the time people weren't just racist that there was outright resistance protests against woodrow wilson's segregation policy and against the film the birth of a nation so it was um the naacp organized against both the president's
036segregation policies as well as the film in 1915 and at this event when several activists black activists went to the white house to meet with wilson they met with him twice and outright told him that his segregationist policies were racist and he got very defensive especially the second time they came and the first visit included a man from boston who i'm going to show you a little bit about in a second william monroe trotter and he wrote a newspaper the guardian that really um in the 1910s and 20s for black news basically in the black movement the civil rights movement and ida b wells was also at the um the first meeting with the president uh the set the first meeting wilson made a lot of promises didn't change anything and by the second meeting
037their words were spoken between trotter and wilson and wilson got indignant and very angry uh and this made the new york times this event so it was not a secret that wilson was a segregationist it was not a secret that he was racist it was known but yet his legacy around the league of nations still withheld and was strong so i'm not surprised that in 1929 uh framingham named the school after woodrow wilson because he was revered as a as a hero um but there was there was very clear awareness of his racist um beliefs at that time would you mind going to the next slide i just wanted to share three books uh that are that document the the racism under wilson that historians these are three prominent historians who've written about wilson's segregation
038policy and the resistance against it this is the one in the middle is a book about william monroe trotter and the book on the right as well is by a local localism tufts university uh historian and they write so much they've done tremendous research and they're very well respected so this is now in the last 10 20 years been fairly widespread that it's been known and documented that wilson was racist and held dearly his segregationist policies and outlook so my last slide just says it's time um and i think this is my last slide and the reason it's time is if you if you google as you can see in the image if you google woodrow wilson school name change as i did just to get a sense of how many there are i only
039did a screenshot of these but it's happening across the country and it's happening for a reason princeton university where woodrow wilson was president of the university they've removed a famous institute with his name on it and a college with his name on it and that was a very difficult uh and trying time for the university but as the um the clip the heading says the university trustees after doing tremendous research interviewing historians and they came up with the conclusion that wilson's racist thinking and i quote and policies made him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college princeton's president said so they they changed it this summer and it's really i'm not surprised that our amazing students led a petition and pushed for this name change and it really is time it really is time
040um i don't believe i have another slide do i think i might have no good sorry um so up next is tiffany maskel tiffany maskel is a school committee member and liaison to the renaming planning committee and she will walk us through the process for renaming the woodrow wilson elementary school um do we need another minute for a break maybe just 10 seconds okay all right well thank you very much for allowing me to speak thank you dr behler thank you dr beehler and um just a warm welcome to all of those who are here tonight who are learning as i am about this process for renaming woodrow wilson elementary school tonight i'm going to talk a little bit about the community voice about planning the planning committee and about the student education that has
041happened in this process this process as many of my colleagues have already alluded to was started by a community voice a group of students brought this opportunity and important initiative to the school committee and by the school the school committee then voted in a nine to nothing vote to develop a planning committee to start looking at the process and that was done in september of 2020 and then the planning committee began meeting in the fall with the goal of creating a community awareness and gathering community input and that outreach began with the wilson staff followed by parents and students and then offered it to the greater community and now the whole framingham community is involved in that process just a timeline of of what has happened in this last year um starting in january and
042i i want to say and and just give a shout out to um the planning committee in general because we've met every week since january so i appreciate all of their efforts in this process in january we started initiate an initiative to the wilson staff and to the students where they explored the history we raised awareness about the importance of social justice and anti-racism and then in february it translated to actually hands-on work within woodrow wilson so our k2 kids were able to study biographies and stories that tied into the justice theme while the grade three through five students actually started brainstorming and researching name ideas and that leads us to where we are today so today we've um even by presenting this webinar we are creating a broader awareness of the name change throughout
043the community we have now have a trilingual submission form that's in circulation and that student education at wilson is still continuing which is amazing um process that's going on and that's a perfect segue to our next speaker who is heather flugrad she is the ib pyp coordinator at wilson elementary she'll be speaking to the student experience with all this and how the school has gone about providing both an educational experience and an inclusive practice showcasing how we can make change in the world around us so i'd like to welcome you heather thank you tiffany i am honored to be here today on behalf of our international baccalaureate primary years program to really showcase the student voice um i i love how we started this program with with liza moreau she actually was a former student
044of mine in fourth grade at woodrow wilson school and i'm so proud of the student activism that that led to this um this amazing initiative with liza and with the petition that layla started um and and the other students involved so um it's important to us to keep the student agency at the heart of this change this name change um at ib school you can see the graphic there that agency is core to who we are having voice choice and ownership um and so that's what we're aiming to do and um as tiffany was mentioning too we're really proud of how we're making this process really inclusive and thoughtful and how we've done that at our school um is i've been collaborating with our library media specialist i want to give a shout out to
045amy salinger and our portuguese world language teacher vanessa austin and in our library and portuguese class specials since january um the three of us have been co-teaching in our you know virtual world now we've got the concurrent teaching um with all the students from kindergarten through fifth grade to get um to first kind of educate why we're doing this and and now to get their voices and their opinions heard so on the next slide i'll do a brief overview of that process um so starting in january we the the main question that was guiding our inquiry was why are we changing our school's name like you know why were we named this um who was woodrow wilson there's a tiny screenshot there you can see that we were really inquiring into who he was and
046everyone knows that he he had some positive things as we learned and and we learned about segregation too and that led us to some really deep conversations with the students about um you know what is segregation and racism and social justice why is it important to be anti-racist um so we had those conversations with all of our students and we heard their voices there's a screenshot over february we used a jam board and they were writing what they thought social justice meant after we really dove into that and then that led us to well what is our criteria for our school's new name so what do we really want it to represent for who we are um and i'll talk about that a little more later and so that leads us to now in the
047month of march and this um like tiffany was saying is when we've been diving into our research so what do i think is the best name for our school and why and really justifying with reasons and we tried to have a lot of agencies so choices students could create posters or slide shows or you'll see some pictures of these 3d models of schools with a new name idea or a video so we did all of that this month and we're wrapping that up now and the next step for student voice would be in april we're hoping that we'll be able to include some student representatives on our narrowing down committee that will help to get all of the input and narrow it down to some finalists so next i want to dive into each of
048those guiding questions a bit more so starting with the why are we changing our school's name i really wanted to represent the student voice with this presentation to make sure that was really heard so i have many of their questions that i'll read aloud just so we get those interpreted too because at an ib school we really believe in teaching through inquiry and you can see on the corners here those are some of our ib learner profile attributes being an inquirer being open-minded being a thinker being principled and so when we started with the question who was woodrow wilson this we asked them what do you know what do you want to know and they had questions like well what was woodrow wilson famous for or was woodrow wilson from framingham or well why is
049our school named after woodrow wilson he's not from framingham um and then well did he do bad things did people know he was racist when the school was named after him and this led like i said to our conversations about how can we right now take action to be anti-racist and support social justice and students had a lot of connections to what's been going on in the world maybe they saw in framingham some of the black lives matter protests we had some really great conversations about what that meant and how we're part of that change and that leads us to talking about the criteria so you'll see later today i'm going to show you the um google form that has the criteria written out and it's a little more wordy than this some bigger words
050so we tried to simplify the criteria for the students um in three categories so starting with our school's name the new name should we believe it should represent our beliefs and values as an ib world school and we talked about what that meant and it should support social justice our school's name can be named after an important person place historical event organization or idea and that name can be connected to our city of framingham our state our country or the world um and then we discuss that there are some won'ts our school name won't be named after anyone who works at our school currently or in framingham currently and won't be named after anyone who is racist or treats people unfairly i'm going to read just for the translation some of the quotes from the
051students uh questions and inquiry that guided our learning together um so they were wondering well what are our beliefs and values as an ib world school and we really looked into the mission statement and those iv learner profile attributes and explored that what is social justice and that's a that's a tricky complex word that we really we talked about a lot what are some examples of names for other ib pyp which means elementary schools are schools in framingham mostly named after people places events organizations or ideas we learned they're mostly named after people aside from like potter road school can our school be named after our mascot wolfy that was like the number one question because our mascot wolfie is very much adored um and so we talked about that might go under the won't
052of not naming it after anyone who works at our school or in framingham so he'll still be here though all right so now on the next slide um just wanted to briefly discuss the research process that research skills is one of the ib approaches to learning that's very important and connects to being an inquirer and so in grades three to five we really focused on those research skills and amy salinger our librarian taught the students about the super three research steps of planning then doing and collecting your sources and research and reviewing based on the criteria and we also really thought about what are some good sources we can use as we're researching and we we really learned a lot from the framingham historical center website because we were curious about famous people or places
053or events from framingham and we explored different social justice activists we researched in both english and portuguese we use the school of britannica and so that was a great learning experience and that leads us to um then for some students and i think for a lot of students and probably adults sometimes it's like okay well we're the first people that come to mind and um and we had some of those you know maybe some famous social justice activists that we all know of and we wanted to push them a little further too and so we did do some research using the framingham history center website and other websites to kind of introduce them to some biographies and some ideas that maybe have a local connection a global significance um in history that maybe could inspire
054a name idea and we also reminded them that our school doesn't have to be named after a person and it could be after a concept um so we really talked a lot about those iv learner profile attributes that you can see listed here such as being caring and open-minded and now i'm going to show you some of their ideas we actually created a school-wide it's called a padlet website that we have all the students posting their ideas when attaching whether it's their slideshow or pictures or videos and so from all of those submissions i've selected some from the younger grades that i'll show you first and then from the older grades all right starting with the cute ones from kindergarten through second grade we um had them do mini schools so they we had lots
055of recycled boxes and uh amy and vanessa did a lot of wrapping of them to help and they decorated with their school names and you can see them putting some iv learner profile attribute posters on there some of the names um they came up with i think the green one is a kindergartner here so felice escola or happy school ib learner school was a popular one escola dos amigos our school of friends caring elementary school here are some more pictures of those so that's nice to reflect on our values and who we are as a school oh and there's wolfie um oh there's another one is scola ib rua leland so ib school leland street all right so now i'm going to show you um some examples i have nine examples that i took from
056the padlet i chose these ones um because they were either very popular many people had these ideas or they had some really persuasive evidence uh reasons um so first example here is the margaret e knight elementary school you can see her poster there and so i think her name should be the name of our school because she was an inquirer and a thinker she lived in framingham she represents the ib traits too and if you don't know who margaret e knight is she was a famous inventor and she one of her most famous inventions is the flat bottom paper bag so when you go to the store and you it opens up thank you margaret knight rosa parks elementary school it's another one our school should be called rosa parks elementary school because she stood
057up for the rights of black people that was a very popular one global elementary school my idea for the school's new name is global elementary school because global is a word that means every person in the world is included and we really connected that to being an international baccalaureate school all right we're going to do a few more and then we'll wrap this up so martin luther king jr elementary school in my opinion martin luther king elementary school is the best name for our ib school because he was a risk taker and open-minded so they did a lot of reflecting on those ib learner profile attributes um this one in the middle here i'm not sure if you all know what harmony grove was but maybe you'll learn something new about framingham um so there's
058a map there that you can see maybe it says farm pond and there's a green square next to it and that was a park right now it's located near franklin street um and so this park um was a place where people would gather for recreation but also had many famous anti-slavery and suffragist rallies so many famous speakers like sojourner truth spoke there in framingham so this one says just like harmony grove was a place in framingham where people could learn about human rights and believe they can make a difference our school is also a place where students learn and reflect about human rights and social justice and we have bridges academy ruby bridges was not just brave at a young age she was an inspiration for other kids who are of color ruby bridges has
059a foundation under her name called the ruby bridges foundation to promote tolerance and create change through education all right we have three more on the next slide and then i could keep going all night but i'll stop after these three um so we have crispus addicts iv school i chose this name because crispus addicts was a risk taker to escape slavery in framingham he was the first to die in the boston massacre and he believed in freedom then in the middle we have framingham community ib school i think framingham community ib school is the best name for our school because we are a community and we work together to make the world a better place that really ties in well to our ib mission statement and last but not least ron burton senior elementary school
060i think ron burton elementary school is a good name to call our school because he was a role model from framingham he never gave up when life was hard and he helped kids from our community with the ron burton training village many of our students have attended and benefited from that all right so now i'm going to explain a little bit about how you can get involved um so we showed the student voice and now we want to hear all community members voices so there's a few ways um number one we'll be putting in the chat box that we have a google form the form is open through the end of march so about one more week and we want as many name submissions as we can get um on the form it has the
061criteria listed so please review the criteria and contribute as many times as you want you can submit all of your ideas next on the one of the last questions on the forum asks if you would like to volunteer to join the name submission committee to help narrow down the suggestions there will be a couple of virtual meetings in april so we're hoping to have representation from students community members you know families staff and lastly spread the word so please have a conversation with someone about what you learned tonight um and we'll be sharing a s'more newsletter that you could help share on social media um to get the word and the form out there and i believe the last slide has the links so we'll also be putting these in the chat box so the
062link to our school website has a page highlighting everything you've learned today about the process and how to get involved as well as our s'more newsletter and of course the google form and that is all for our presentation part of tonight's event and now we're going to go back to lara who's going to facilitate the question and answers with our panelists tonight so thank you fantastic thank you so much heather and thank you to all of our panelists tonight for sharing your experience and your expertise with us here in the community and i have to say if i've learned nothing else tonight i've learned that we have some really impressive kids in our community so i'm excited to see where this goes um at this point we oh i also wanted to mention uh i
063mentioned it at the beginning but we are recording tonight's presentation so as heather said spread the word and you know let people who might be interested know that they can watch it on the framingham public schools youtube share that video with everyone and invite them to share their ideas for a school name as well we're going to be looking through the q a section to answer questions and at the end we will reserve a few minutes for our viewers that are using the spanish and portuguese language options just as a reminder this is an informational session if you have any thoughts or wish to speak in a more public forum about the name change you can virtually attend the may 5th school committee meeting and of course if you have any name change suggestions we
064invite you to attend that and also the um google form that rochelle has just shared in the chat with you all so i invite you all to put your questions in our question and answer section here i'll be reading them out loud and then the appropriate panelist will answer the question so the very first question we have is will there be a short list of possible names shared before the final selection i think this might be perhaps heather is this you well i can tell you that the um we're putting together that um school name uh narrowing down committee i forget the exact title for that committee in april and i think they will be discussing the process with how we're narrowing it down and i think that's a great suggestion that maybe they'll consider
065to to help have more input from the community before we give the final suggestions to the school committee and in the end school committee will make the final decision so um i think that's a great idea so we'll see what they decide on that committee so we have along the same line someone asking about how to sign up for the name narrowing community when that time comes um so on the google form which was in the chat that's the final question if you're interested and so first we're collecting all the names who are interested and then um uh i mean priscilla do you want to say more about how you reach out because i think you'll be helping to lead that right absolutely thank you so much so later on this week we should be
066or um early next week we will be sending out in a message to everyone who has indicated interest in participating in this narrowing down committee which has been the unofficial name we've we've probably given uh very descriptive but um so yeah so if you have indicated that you would like to participate you will be hearing us from us very soon i have a question from someone who submitted the name of sarah clays and she said they never received a reply how do they know if their suggestion was received so when submitting um a survey response after you press submit at the bottom of the screen a message should pop up that says your response has been recorded and if that message came up that's how you know for sure that your your response was collected
067we have someone saying this is a great forum they thank everyone for the hard work um they're suggesting there might be sentiment in the community for many long time residents who say why change it and why now and i know we kind of talked a lot about that throughout this presentation but is there anyone who wants to expand just a little bit do you want me to say something um i i think you know i study the holocaust for my field and we talk a lot about commemoration and representation and the names of the name of a school that a child goes to every day is powerful and if we know now that wilson held these very racist views and enacted policies that were racist i don't think we can look at our kids and
068say we want you to go to a school that has that name it's just just wrong so i i think that's why now people are willing to to face that if i may too i would just add that this is also reflective of who we are as a district that our core values what we represent as a school district and you know i i can happy to share that it's available on our website when you read through the through the core values our mission and our vision you'll see very clearly that uh preserving this namesake is in sharp contrast to the very core values that we hold as a school district all right i want to invite you again one more time to put any additional questions in the chat i have someone asking why
069is the final decision uh to the school committee and not narrowed down by the subcommittee but voted on by the students to include their voice and choice and agency tiffany is chair of the policy subcommittee do you want to answer that or should i sorry i was just trying to turn my microphone on so under policy ff it is our guiding um policy that states that how the process of renaming a school is laid out so for anyone who is interested if you go to the fps website and you go to the school committee there is a link to our policy manual and you can look up policy ff if you do have questions about the process um and that has been laid out for us in policy i think that question connects to the
070earlier question too about a way of getting some voice and narrowing down too so maybe i will see what that that committee decides if there will be maybe another round of student voice if we we have some contenders and then in the end the school committee decides absolutely and i think that's an important point heather that um the narrowing down committee will be made up of students of parents of staff members of school committee um and the district so i think it's really important that we have all voices there at the table as we are and as they are looking to narrow those names down for us all right i'm not seeing any more questions immediately um rochelle do we want to offer an opportunity for our portuguese and spanish-speaking um attendees to ask any
071questions uh yep that would be wonderful actually so if our at bernardo and marcos if we could take a look at the q a and we'll give a moment in case any questions come in feel free to guide any viewers to the q a at the bottom of the zoom screen and we'll see if any questions come in thank you there is a new question while we wait lara yeah i wasn't i wanted to give space just in case but i'll go ahead um excuse me i lost my place there it is will the school committee in the final vote only consider what names are submitted from the committee i guess the short answer is yes however um that is why it's very important to have such a collaborative process until we get there if
072um [Music] you have any desire to be a part of this conversation um please check that uh yes and that question at the end um we'd like to hopefully in our quote-unquote narrowing down community we really want to um even if you can't participate all the way we want to be as inclusive as possible all right maybe one more minute to put any additional questions in our chat box in any of our languages and if there aren't any more questions then um we will let you go for the evening thank you so much for your interest tonight for attending with us and for contributing some ideas to help us move the school forward and also thank you to all of our community partners who came together to help create awareness for the broader community we
073do have one more i'm so sorry if a student's suggestion is used for the new name will the student be recognized i can take that one of course we want to recognize our students and if it comes from the students we're we're working on a two-part plan one on how to celebrate as we're ending and finishing hopefully the covid stage and how we can come together as a community and of course if the celebration entails a student enlisted name we will do something very special for that student so we will take ideas on what specialty that will be also we maybe we can heather add that to our curriculum if a student's name you know is chosen what should their prize be um at the end so we we'd love that absolutely fantastic all right
074well it is getting close to 8 30 so thank you again panelists for your expertise tonight thank you audience for being with us and one more time this presentation will be available on youtube the bitly links and to the forums to suggest your names to the school have been posted in the chat and we look forward to hearing your suggestions and moving forward together in this process you