Flag question on hold; school board to discuss renaming Thatcher Brook Primary School

February 6, 2021  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

The Harwood Union School Board recently sidelined the question of flying the Black Lives Matter flag at district schools but it has carved out time at its next meeting Feb. 10 to hear from the public and discuss the question of whether to consider a new name for Thatcher Brook Primary School. 

The board at its Jan. 27 meeting heard from Principal Tom Drake from Crossett Brook Middle School and Sarah Schoolcraft, assistant principal at Thatcher Brook, who are leading district wide anti-racism trainings among school staff as part of the school district’s Task Force on Anti-Racism. 

The board had asked for input from community members regarding whether to consider flying the Black Lives Matter flag at the district’s seven campuses as part of this ongoing focus on racial justice. Few people attended to comment publicly on the question. 

Duxbury resident Life LeGeros, however, read a statement on the topic from the Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Coalition asking that the board hold off on taking this step until it could involve more student participation.  

“At other schools, requests to raise the flag have been primarily led by students of color and the decision to do so was a show of support for those students,” LeGeros read. “The processes that led to the requests included awareness-raising, community dialogue, collective learning, and the navigation of pushback and conflict. Those communities grappled with the impacts of racism and the significance of the BLM movement globally and locally.”

LeGeros also noted that during discussions around raising the flag two years ago at Harwood Union High School, some students worried about backlash that could result from the move.  

The board shifted its focus to whether the district has a policy on flags and agreed to charge a committee to develop a flag policy. 

The board also discussed the question of whether the name of Thatcher Brook Primary School in Waterbury should be changed. Last month, it heard from high school students, teachers and community members who are advocating for a name change after research and discussion about 18th-century early Waterbury landowner and surveyor Partridge Thatcher included information that he was a slaveholder. 

The school was named after the Thatcher Brook in Waterbury in 1997 at the time Waterbury and Duxbury merged their schools and built Crossett Brook Middle School. The new two-town district sought to avoid naming either school after a town so Waterbury Elementary School was renamed Thatcher Brook Primary School, taking its name from the nearby brook that was so named to acknowledge the historical figure.  

A community forum was convened in December, organized by Harwood Union High School students, the Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Coalition and the Waterbury Public Library. It focused on the history of Partridge Thatcher to pose the question of whether, in the interest of racial justice, Thatcher is an appropriate namesake for the pre-kindergarten-4th grade public school.  

High school student facilitators from the community discussion told the school board in January that more than 80 percent of the roughly 100 attendees at the forum supported a name change, although in other venues public opinion has been more divided. 

The school board put the topic on the agenda for meeting Wednesday, Feb. 10. In addition to setting aside an hour for public comment, the board has asked for more community input by email or phone calls before that meeting.  

The matter is listed as an action item on the agenda. In their pre-meeting notes to the full board, Chair Caitlin Hollister from Waterbury and Vice Chair Torrey Smith of Duxbury make several suggestions on how the board might proceed ending with: “It is our strong recommendation that the Board take some action at our next meeting, in order to indicate to our community what they can expect from us as we address this naming question.” 

The email address to contact the entire board is: cen-huusdboard@huusd.org. Individual board email addresses and phone numbers are on the district’s website, huusd.org, under the “board” heading. 

Individuals are also invited to attend the Feb. 10 meeting to offer comments of up to 3 minutes during the public comment period. The meetings are held by video conference with details on how to connect on the board website as well. 

Background information regarding Partridge Thatcher’s history prepared for the Dec. 15 forum is on the Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Coalition’s website. Waterbury Roundabout has posted a transcript of the introduction to that forum here. Story from the December forum is here.