EMMIE BOESE
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Last year, the Hutchinson USD 308 Board of Education approved the combining of Lincoln and McCandless Elementary into one school. On Monday night, the BOE approved in a 7-0 vote to keep the name of the school as is.
"And you know as Shakespeare did a pretty good job of exploring, it's important to have a name that everybody can agree on and be okay with and so that was when we were like well how do we do that," Lincoln-McCandless Principal Paul Carver said. "How do we look at our name and be responsive to each school's needs and also be aware of an opportunity that we had so we wanted to look at the important figures in Reno County and Hutchinson. We wanted to acknowledge and embrace the potential that we have a diverse population within our school and so how do we take all of those ideas and come up with what tenets we want to find our suggestions to the board, on changing our names."
Carver suggested to Leslie Specht, Hutchinson USD 308 elementary teacher of the year nominee to lead a project based learning initiative for the entire third grade team on the renaming of Lincoln-McCandless.
The third grade students researched notable figures of Hutchinson and Reno County that they thought would represent their school's values. They also researched the history behind the former Lincoln and McCandless Elementary Schools and took field trips to learn even further.
"The third grade students did a good job of considering what are the values that Lincoln-McCandless students want to be known for," Carver said.
The students narrowed down 15 options into three. The option with the most votes was to keep Lincoln-McCandless as the official name of the school.
Carve said the idea to keep the name as is was sparked from a third grade student that said he was really proud of who "they are" so why would would they need to change the name at all.
"I think that's an important option for us to recognize is that we are two proud families," Carver said.
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