Thompson school board weighs keeping Mary Blair name for new campus

A Thompson School District committee recommended keeping the Mary Blair name for the former elementary school building, now becoming a family services and student programs campus, and offered two variants for the board to consider: Mary Blair Encompass Center and Mary Blair Campus.

The renaming is estimated to cost $5000, funded by Community Connection sale proceeds and budgeted as a one-time signage expense. Implementation is proposed to start Nov. 18, and the facility's name is to be updated across departments.

Mary Blair Elementary School closed in 2023. The building is being repurposed as a multipurpose campus for family services, intensive education programs and other student programs and services. The district began the renaming to align the building's name with that new purpose.

A committee member said separate programs deserve their own names, and that a broad campus name would let those identities change as programs evolve. The member said the aim was to "keep at the core the value of Mary Blair."

The campus will house the state and federal programs team, and special education programming is also planned for the site, the member said. The member named the PATH team, which supports highly mobile youth, and the FACE Center, the Family Community Engagement Center, as examples.

Director Denise Chapman said the simplicity of Mary Blair suited the building because people had often referred to the former school simply as Mary Blair. She said "it's the simplicity that is the beauty of it," and that the name maintained continuity and history.

Another board member said Mary Blair had stood the test of time as an educator and that retaining her name was pleasing. The committee member said the committee researched Mary Blair and saw preserving her name as a way to maintain the site's history.

Some board members raised doubts. One asked whether the programs at the campus would keep their own names and said Mary Blair initially seemed too simple. Another said they liked Mary Blair Encompass Center but thought the full name would be cumbersome when paired with a program name, and favored Mary Blair for its simplicity.

A third board member said the district had made efforts to move away from naming facilities after people because views of those people could change over time. The member still called the research on Mary Blair "a great chance to highlight that for our community."

The district convened the naming committee on Oct. 22, in alignment with Board Policy FF and FF-R. A presenter said the committee used a consensus process to reach its recommendations, and the committee member said that included a fist-to-five protocol.

Seven committee members were present, and two invited students could not attend, the presenter said. The seven participants included district state and federal programs staff, the district's director of operations and its bond director. Also taking part were representatives or members from Sunrise Community Health-Loveland, The Arc and the Food Bank of Larimer County, along with parents.

The presenter said both students were contacted for input on the naming process. They attend different schools and were comfortable with all three options, the presenter said, though both preferred the option the presenter called Mary Blair Compass Center. The presenter said that if the students' votes were tallied in, Mary Blair would still be the top choice by the numbers, but that all of it was for the board's consideration.

The committee member said some other names considered were already used by school districts or community groups, and the committee wanted to avoid confusion. The member cited a Common Grounds coffee shop as an example.