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Ashland School Board to consider new outdoor school name By Kevin Opsahl Updated: May 11, 2022 01:04 PM A A ‘TRAILS Outdoor School’ was on a committee shortlist and fully supported by John Muir Outdoor School faculty, staff and students After months of deliberations and evaluating community suggestions, a committee tasked with recommending new names for the John Muir Outdoor School in Ashland has put forward a top recommendation: TRAILS Outdoor School. TRAILS — which stands for Trust, Respect, Awareness, Interdependency, Leadership, Stewardship — was one of four top committee vote-getters, rising above Ashland Outdoor School, Southern Oregon Outdoor School and River Crossing Outdoor School, according to a report issued to the board ahead of its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 11. “We set out to find not simply someone else in history to honor, but to identify a name that would honor the past, present and future students of the school, with its nature-based identity, and a name that would withstand the tests and weathering of time,“ the committee wrote in its report. It is not clear whether the board meeting Wednesday will include a vote on the proposal — which received support from members of the JMOS community — but the report will be discussed. The school board voted last year to rename the John Muir Outdoor School after a different committee examined all the names of the district’s buildings and recommended the Ashland K-8 school be renamed. The committee found in its 2021 report that Muir — the co-founder of the Sierra Club and the person credited with creating the national parks system — had negative attitudes toward Native Americans and people of color. After the school board voted last year to rename JMOS, the district superintendent sent out a letter asking district families for suggestions of new names. The renaming committee, which worked from February to April, weeded out some of them from further consideration because they were deemed not relevant to the district’s or the school’s values. The committee used a rubric to score the batch of names under consideration and narrowed it down to the aforementioned four finalists before forwarding them to the JMOS community for consideration. JMOS faculty, staff and students liked Ashland Outdoor School and TRAILS the most, ultimately reasoning that TRAILS “resonated with and without the acronym.” Though the only pitfall JMOS constituents noted is that the name “could be perceived” that it is an “outdoor adventure school (similar to NOLS, previously known as National Outdoor Leadership School, or Outward Bound).” JMOS Principal Jennifer Parks stated in the committee report that she is proud to submit the TRAILS name to the school board for consideration. “We are proud of the process to make this impactful decision and are excited to embrace our new name once the board has made their decision, regardless of if it is our first or second choice,” Parks stated. Reach reporter Kevin Opsahl at 541-776-4476 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @KevJourno.