GYRD choses a new brand

If you’ve ever thought to yourself what on earth is the Grande Yellowhead Regional Division (GYRD), you weren’t alone.

To combat this confusion, GYRD, the name of the school division that Jasper’s Elementary School and Jr./Sr. High School belong to, has been researching a new name by asking students, staff and the public what they think would best represent the division.

It’s anticipated the board will make a decision at its April 14 meeting, said Nicole Merrifield, communications manager for the division.

According to Merrifield, GYRD wanted to ensure that “our name and visual identify reflect who we are and what we do as a public schools division.”
Merrifield said the division’s name is often used incorrectly within the media and various other publications which leads to more confusion about the role of GYRD.

“Our reception at the front desk quite often gets calls with people thinking we’re the county,” she said, calling it a case of mistaken identity.

“If you look at our name and the fact it doesn’t refer in any way to students or education or learning or any of those sorts of things ... our name isn’t reflective of what we do and of the service we provide in our community,” she said.

GYRD has put forward four ideas for the new school division name, which all include the word school and Yellowhead. These are: West Yellowhead Schools; Grande Yellowhead School Division; Yellowhead Public Schools; and Greater Yellowhead School Division.

Merrifield said the research thus far showed it was important to keep the Yellowhead name as it was an indicator for the division’s “solid reputation” which would take a long time for them to rebuild if they were to eliminate it from the title.

It won’t be just the name that’s getting changed; GYRD’s logo is also undergoing a facelift by Elk Island Public School, because of its strong graphic design program. Merrifield said she hopes the logo will be ready by the end of the month so that everything will be ready to go for the beginning of the 2009/2010 school year.