Name & Colours

Limestone Learning Foundation

The new Kingston secondary school currently under construction will be named Kingston Secondary School. Trustees with the Limestone District School Board decided on the name at its regular board meeting March 21, 2018.

Kingston Secondary School was chosen from a short list of five names provided to Trustees by the Central Kingston Intermediate/Secondary Integration Committee. The final five names – Central Kingston Secondary School, Gordon Downie Secondary School, Kingston Secondary School, Kingston Central Secondary School, and Namwayut Secondary School – were selected from a variety of suggestions provided through two phases of consultation.

Kingston Secondary School will refer to the Grade 9-12 portion of the new 171,000-square-foot facility on Kirkpatrick Street. Module Vanier, the Grade 7 and 8 French Immersion school currently located inside Kingston Collegiate & Vocational Institute (KCVI), will retain its name when it relocates to the new building that will house the current student population at KCVI.

"The selection of the school name is an exciting and important step in the creation of a school community," said Central Kingston Integration Committee Chair Paula Murray. "Kingston Secondary School is a wonderful choice that strikes a balance between creating a new name for this new beginning while honouring our past history.”

The naming process was overseen by the Integration Committee which includes student, parent and staff representatives from Module Vanier, KCVI, and the former Queen Elizabeth Collegiate & Vocational Institute. The committee sought input from students, families, staff and the broader Kingston community through two phases of consultation. During phase one, the committee received 560 submissions which were then narrowed to the nine names that received the most support. During phase two, more than 2,400 responses were received, 739 from students. Based on a review of these results, and through consensus-building discussions, the committee selected five names that best represented the suggestions, and aligned with the Board's Naming of New Schools administrative procedure, for submission to the Board of Trustees for consideration.

“The Integration Committee did a fantastic job at considering the many names and ideas submitted, including soliciting robust participation from hundreds of students who will attend the new school,” said Murray. “We appreciate their work on the naming, and we look forward to their coordination of the new school colours and mascot, the next pieces of the transition process.”

Colours & Mascot

Image of new Kingston Secondary School logoFollowing a separate consultation process with the Integration Committee, staff and more than 500 students who will attend the new school, the new school colours will be black, blue and white. Based on additional student, staff and community feedback, the mascot for the new Kingston Secondary School will be the Bears.

Students from KCVI and students from elementary feeder schools who will eventually attend the new school advocated strongly for a mascot that would bring together the KCVI and QECVI communities. Many students felt Bears seemed like a natural 
fit as it blends KCVI’s Blue Bear/Blues mascot with the black from the former QECVI logo/mascot.

Students also spoke to the Bear being an important animal to local Indigenous cultures. The new school, and the Limestone District School Board, is located on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee. The Black Bears fits nicely with the new school’s colours: black, blue and white.

Image of new Kingston Secondary School athletic logo.Initially, earlier consultation around the new school mascot/nickname suggested the “Royals.” Concerns, however, came forward from students and community members during the consultation process regarding the name and how it would be visually represented. The term “Royals” has many negative connotations for some given its reinforcement of colonial history particularly when combined with Kingston which was originally known as King’s Town.

As a result, the Integration Committee, made up of students, staff and families of the consolidated schools, decided to not move forward with the “Royals.” Revisiting input provided during the previous consultation process, the Integration Committee reviewed three additional mascot suggestions: Bears, Coyotes and Lions. Following a voting process, the committee decided on Bears – the Kingston Secondary School Bears, or Kingston Bears – as its new mascot.


 

 

The Limestone District School Board is situated on traditional territories of the Anishinaabe & Haudenosaunee.