Committee votes on how many names to send to Board of Education.
After two rounds of voting, a committee settled on a preliminary new name for Christopher Columbus Family Academy (CCFA): Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration (FAME).
The CCFA Facility Renaming Sub Committee made the decision Tuesday evening using an online ranked-choice voting process via Zoom.
Their suggestion now advances to the Board of Education for consideration.
Ten members of the committee chose from among 13 name candidates narrowed down from more than 200 choices submitted by the public after a group conversation discussing their top choices.
First vote options.
Committee members remained slightly divided by whether it was best to rename the school after a person, a place, or a theme. Members of the public expressed an interest in naming the school after a local person last week during a public forum with the committee.
The committee’s first vote determined the two top-ranked names. Each name needed four out of ten votes to meet the threshold for top two winners. The members’ rankings went through a five-round process.
Committee member Sarah Miller of New Haven Public School Advocates suggested the ranked-choice voting idea after seeing the process be used for the determining the color of the newly rebuilt Grand Avenue Bridge.
Round one added up all first-choice votes. This eliminated seven name candidates, leaving six candidates left in the race. Then the second-choice votes were added up in the following round for those who voted for eliminated candidates.
Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration reached the vote threshold in round four, with a final count of four votes. The runner up was Explorers Multilingual Family Academy, with six votes.
After the vote, committee member Robert Gibson pushed for the committee to consider revoting because the original ballot split the vote among four varying options of a name with “four winds” in it.
“Several minutes ago everyone seemed to be quite impressed with the phrase ‘four winds.’ ‘Four winds’ does link in with exploration, diversity,” Gibson said. “I think that the ‘four winds’ kind of stands out as rather unique.”
After the committee agreed to do a second vote with three candidates: the two top choices from the first vote and one version of the “four winds” name. It was also considered to include one version of a name with “Sonia Sotomayor,” but only one member expressed interest in voting for the option as a top choice. Three members expressed that they did not agree with voting again.
Second vote determines winner.
The second vote went through two rounds for the three candidates, this time including Four Winds Multilingual Family Academy as an option.
Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration won with five votes, followed by Four Winds Multilingual Family Academy with four.
Next the committee decided whether to send the Board of Education one, two, or three name recommendations. Originally they planned to send two. After a finger vote, the majority voted in favor of only sending one name to the board.
Four winds is likely a pagan/Wiccan reference which I'm fine with but it is somewhat of a spiritual context imo. Probably unnecessary to go there unless we are going there very intentionally. Perhaps Gibson knows this and is pushing for it anyway for some reason.