Pasco County School Board members have plenty of names to consider for Elementary W, a new school set to open in Wesley Chapel in August.
Forty-one names have been submitted for the board’s consideration. It is scheduled to vote on the issue at its March 15 meeting at 6 p.m.
Several of the names are variations on the same name.
For instance, there are three variations for a school to be named after the Godwin family, or a member of the family — a family with deep roots in the Wesley Chapel area.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
There’s also a couple of suggestions relating to the Porter family, one being Porter Elementary and the other, Porter Ranch Elementary. And, there’s a suggestion for Wiregrass Elementary, which relates to the name of the Porter family’s ranch, which is also the namesake for Wiregrass Ranch High School and Pasco-Hernando State College’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch. The high school and state college are just down the street from the new elementary school.
There are also suggestions to name the school after the nation’s current president Barack Obama Elementary, or to call it Challenger Elementary, in honor the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s explosion.
Other suggestions call for naming it for people who have contributed to community life, education or society. Those include naming it for: Dave Estabrook, a retired educator; Greta L. Adams, a retired educator; Harriet Hemenway, a founder of what would go on to become the National Audubon Society; Heather Fiorentino, former superintendent of Pasco County Schools; the late Mike Olson, former county tax collector; Sandra and Max Ramos, retired educators; the late Wendell Krinn, former principal of Ridgewood High; and Susan Jordan, the Indiana educator who died while pushing children out of the way of a speeding school bus.
A couple suggestions submitted — Dempsey Elementary and Nancy Browning Elementary — were not accompanied by any details.
Some submissions suggest giving the school a name it could live up to, such as Acceleration Elementary, or Bright Future Elementary, or Growth Elementary, or Hope Elementary, or Love Elementary, or New Horizons Elementary, or Unity Elementary, or Whole Child Elementary, or Wonderful Elementary, or World Change Elementary.
One suggests Yankees Elementary. Another, Galaxy Elementary.
Others want to name it after places, or at least to give it a name that sounds like a place. Those suggestions are Chapel Falls Elementary, Gatorville Elementary, Long Ranch Elementary, Mansfield Elementary, Meadow Pointe Elementary, Ridge Elementary, Wilderness Elementary and Woodside Elementary.
Of course, board members could also come up with a few ideas of their own.
The board meets at the school district’s office complex, Building No. 3 North at 7205 Land O’ Lakes Blvd., in Land O’ Lakes.
School name suggestions
–Acceleration Elementary
–Barack Obama Elementary
–Bright Future Elementary
–Brown Elementary
–Challenger Elementary
–Chapel Falls Elementary
–Dempsey Elementary
–Estabrook Elementary
–Galaxy Elementary
–Gatorville Elementary
–Jacob Godwin Elementary
–Godwin Elementary
–E.L. Godwin Elementary
–Greta L. Adams Elementary
–Growth Elementary
–Harriet Hemenway Elementary
–Heather Fiorentino Elementary
–Hope Elementary
–Long Ranch Elementary
–Love Elementary
–Mansfield Elementary
–Meadow Pointe Elementary
–Mike Olson Elementary
–Nancy Browning Elementary
–New Horizons Elementary
–Porter Elementary
–Porter Ranch Elementary
–Ramos Elementary
–Ridge Elementary
–Susan Jordan Elementary
–Unity Elementary
–Wendell Krinn Elementary
–Whole Child Elementary
–Wilderness Elementary
–Wiregrass Elementary
–Wiregrass Ranch Elementary
–Wonderful Elementary
–Woodside Elementary
–World Change Elementary
–Yankees Elementary
Published March 9, 2016
