ST. GEORGE – The Washington County School District Board of Education finalized its policy for naming school facilities and announced the names of three new schools to be built in the Washington Fields area during a regular meeting Tuesday.
An elementary, middle school and high school are planned for the Washington Fields area, and all three schools will be paid for by bonds authorized by voters in 2013, when a $185 million bond for school construction was passed in a special bond election.
“Crimson High School” and “Crimson Middle School” are the names chosen after a community survey in which 1,400 residents participated, and the school mascot will be the Titans.
The public’s most popular color combination was red and silver, but school board members thought the choice was too similar to Hurricane High School’s colors.
Navy and silver were also popular with the public, and so those were chosen as the new school colors.
After much discussion about the pros and cons of having three official school colors, and the wisdom of naming a school “Crimson” without having red as a school color, board members added crimson as an official school color.
“Majestic Fields Elementary” was announced as the name for the third new school in the Washington Fields area; the school colors and mascot will be chosen by the Community Council.
The new elementary school, to be built at approximately 2700 South Washington Fields Road, will be needed for either the 2016-2017 or 2017-2018 school year, depending on enrollment numbers.
A bid in the amount of $8,649,000 was awarded to Bud Mahas Construction Inc. to build the new elementary school.
Naming policy
In other business, the Board finalized a policy governing how schools and school facilities are named.
The policy also regulates signs placed at school facilities that have been named in honor of an individual. Facilities including labs, hallways and sports fields are often named in honor of individuals who contributed a lot of time, effort or money. In the new policy, a size limit for signs was removed and a $2,500 cap on the value of any such sign was added.
The new policy comes in the wake of several months of controversy which began when Dixie High School removed former Coach Don Lay’s name from the school’s new baseball field.
Read more: School board to consider Dixie baseball field name; Don Lay supporters plan last rally
Supporters of Don Lay protested the name change by starting a Facebook page and a launching a petition. The new policy is designed to clarify the naming policy in order to prevent similar problems from arising in the future.
Resources
- Policy No. 5111 Naming of School Facilities can be found on the district’s Web page
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