Stew Young was among the names shortlisted as the Sooke School District heard ideas from the public on what to call the new elementary school in south Langford.

The former Langford mayor was among the top 12 suggestions, which were split into three categories: geographical, local Indigenous culture and historical names.

Suggestions for geographical were Langford or South Langford Elementary, Latoria, Olympic View and Triangle Mountain. Residents suggested working with a local Indigenous nation to pick a name for the school. Other suggestions in that category included Cosen (which means star in SENCOTEN, the language of the WSANEC peoples), Klahanie (which means outdoors in Chinook) and Quelensen (which means bald eagle in SENCOTEN).

For historical names, the suggestions were Sarah Beckett, the former West Shore RCMP officer who was killed while on duty in 2016; John Horgan, former B.C. premier and Langford-Juan de Fuca MLA; Scott Manning, who died in 2020 after being principal at a number of SD62 schools; and Young, who served as the mayor of Langford for almost 30 years.

SD62 asked for the public’s input during a public engagement session held at Pexsisen Elementary School on Wednesday (Feb. 15).

Funding for the new south Langford school was announced by the province back in June. The school is estimated to open in fall 2025 with room for 480 students.

“The population of the south Latoria and Happy Valley neighbourhoods continue to grow and adding another elementary school will address some of our immediate capacity needs,” Scott Stinson, superintendent of SD62, said in a previous statement. “Since I took on this role in 2018, we have grown by roughly 2,000 new students, and we need to continue to build new schools to account for the region’s growing population.”

The school will also include a neighbourhood learning centre for community programming and child care.

SD62 is set to make a final naming decision in March.

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Among the top 12 names suggested by the public were Triangle Mountain, Sarah Beckett and Stew Young. (Sooke School District/Facebook)