November 5th, 2020

Letter to the Eastwood Community

After much discussion and contemplation, the staff at Eastwood Collegiate Institute (ECI) has decided we will no longer be using the moniker “Rebel”.

As a staff, we started a discussion about the name Rebels in the spring of 2020 and determined that its historic links to a Confederate soldier are both indisputable and problematic. While attempts have been made in the recent past to distance the term Rebels from the Confederate South, we cannot change the reality that Confederate flags once hung in the school, and the original mascot was a Confederate soldier. We recognize that it has never been the intent of any Eastwood staff or student in the past or present to use the term Rebel as a means to marginalize others; however, intent is not the measure by which we decided to make this change. Rather it is the potential impact of the name that drove our decision.

As educators, our responsibility is to build a culture of inclusivity, creating a safe and caring space for all students in which to learn. We must lead and model messages of inclusion for our students each day, making sure that all voices are heard and respected.

We recognize that this change may be challenging for some students, staff, and alumni. We also understand that there are positive connotations of the word “rebel,” and that decisions made in the past concerning this name and its associations (mascot and flag) were not used out of intolerance. The name was selected as a symbol in the 1960s without ill intent; however, the perceptions of racism exist nonetheless.

We will continue to honour the rich history of this school while creating new traditions and memories for our current students and staff. What makes Eastwood such a special place to learn and to work are the students, staff, and alumni who are part of this diverse community, regardless of what we name ourselves.

While we work through this process to choose a new moniker, we will simply refer to ourselves as Eastwood, or as our staff and students like to say, “We the East”.