School board gets request to rename Thatcher Brook Primary School
January 20, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti
Stowe Street's Thatcher Brook Primary School has had several names and uses: Waterbury High School in the first half or so of the 20th century; Waterbury Elementary School starting mid-1960s, and the current name chosen in 1997 when Waterbury and Duxbury merged schools and named both after brooks in each town. Photo by Gordon Miller.
UPDATE: This story was updated below on Jan. 21 with information on the school board’s plans to discuss this topic on Feb. 10; the board also plans a Jan. 27 discussion about flying the Black Lives Matter flag at all of its seven campuses. See below.
A community forum last month to discuss the history of Waterbury’s school’s namesake has started momentum toward considering changing the name of Thatcher Brook Primary School.
Last week, the Harwood Union Unified School Board heard from teachers and high school students who participated in the online community conversation attended by nearly 100 people to discuss the topic. It was hosted by the Waterbury Anti-Racism Coalition, the Harwood Refugee Outreach Club and the Waterbury Public Library.
“We believe the board should initiate a process to change the name of Thatcher Brook Primary School,” Harwood senior Ellie Odefey told the board. “We hope this process includes a way that Partridge Thatcher and his connection to slavery and our community can be preserved so we can continue to learn from it.”
Odefey referred to the 18th-century figure in Waterbury’s history, Partridge Thatcher, who hailed from New Milford, Conn., and was among the early landowners in the town. He paid one visit to Waterbury in 1782 as part of a surveying team and the Thatcher Brook is named for him.
The town’s school on Stowe Street has served the community for the past century. After Harwood Union High School opened in 1965, it was known as Waterbury Elementary School. Then in 1997 it was renamed to Thatcher Brook Primary School as Waterbury and Duxbury merged to form a union school district with students from both communities attending lower grades in the Waterbury school and then attending the newly built Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury. Both of the schools were named after nearby waterways in their communities.
Local officials at the time said the focus then was in coming up with new names that reflected the new school district and the namesakes of the brooks used in that process weren’t ever considered.
Last year, members of the community’s new anti-racism organization were researching some of the town’s founding figures and learned that Thatcher had owned slaves in his time. And while his family history tells of how he took steps before and after his death in 1786 to free them, his legacy as a slaveholder remains.
The research was deemed an apt topic as the group sought to initiate community conversations around race, anti-racism and discrimination in cooperation with the student group and the library. The forum was held Dec. 15 as an online video conference with students facilitating the discussion groups, something Harwood history teacher Kathy Cadwell said stems from the methods students regularly employ to explore many topics.
“You should be really proud of them,” she told the board last week. “This is what we want our kids to do is to be active members in our democracy and in our community.”
Harwood junior Allie Brooks from Warren shared results of a survey of forum participants in which 87% said they supported changing the school name and nearly 68% said they strongly favored a name change. She did suggest that the future conversations seek out a wider variety of opinions given how the forum attendees were in such strong agreement.
Other community feedback on social media has been more mixed with older local residents not as connected with the school directly saying they think a name change is unnecessary.
School board members have a number of anti-racism topics on their to-do list for this year including the Thatcher Brook school issue, the possibility of raising the Black Lives Matter flag at schools, and a myriad of avenues to explore regarding equity, bullying, curriculum and more in the schools. They thanked the students for the presentation on the Thatcher Brook forum calling it an important issue.
“This is a topic that we have prioritized this year for our board,” said Chair Caitlin Hollister, one of Waterbury’s four representatives on the board.
The students say they see this issue as a way to connect the past to the present day.
“Addressing racism in our communities is something that students are as passionate as ever about,” Harwood senior Jasper Koliba of Waterbury told the school board. “The conversation of the Thatcher Brook name change marks a stepping stone towards understanding racism in our communities.”
* * * * *
UPDATE: In an announcement on Jan. 20, the school board said it would discuss the Thatcher Brook Primary School name at its Feb. 10 meeting. At next week’s meeting, Jan. 27, it will take up the topic of raising the Black Lives Matter flag at all of the district’s school campuses.
“We are eager to hear from you - our greater public, and in particular, our students and BIPOC members of our community - to share your thoughts about these topics. It is our hope to hear from a broad range of voices from our six towns and embark on a process that encourages collective learning. We welcome all viewpoints, both through email or public comment at an upcoming meeting,” the board’s announcement said.
Board meetings are at 6 p.m. via Zoom and YouTube with recordings also available to view on Mad River TV. Details on how to join and/or watch are on the board section of the district’s website: huusd.org.
Comments may be sent to all of the board using this email address: cen-huusdboard@huusd.org.