A question that we hear frequently is, how did we come up with the name ‘Bellstone Christian School’? To answer that question, we would like briefly to trace two stories:
- The history of the building
- The naming process
History of the Building
The school building that we purchased in November, 2015 formerly housed Bell-Stone Public School. Bell-Stone Public School opened its doors in 1963, an amalgamation of two one-room school houses: Bell School near Tyneside Road, and Stone School on Airport Road. This school operated for 51 years, and was closed by the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) in June of 2014 following an accommodation review. The HWDSB declared the property surplus, and eventually the property was listed on the open market. While as School Society we had originally been planning to work with Trinity Canadian Reformed Church to open the school in their building at 32 Unity Road, we decided to make a bid for the Bell-Stone School property with the knowledge that if we were unsuccessful, we could always fall back to our original plan. The LORD blessed the bid that was submitted along with the corresponding capital drive that was conducted to support the bid, and in December 2015 we took possession of the building.
The Naming Process
After the purchase of the school building was complete, the School Society began the process of selecting a name for the school. Members were invited to submit potential names for the membership to consider, along with rationale for why the name would be suitable. In February of 2016, the Glancaster School Society Board distributed an online survey to the membership asking them to select between 1 and 3 choices of school names. From this survey, the Board set aside three names that had received the highest number of votes in the survey: Bellstone Christian School, Hosanna Christian School, and Zion Christian School.
At the membership meeting on May 5, 2016, the members had an opportunity to select the school name from the three presented. After two rounds of voting, the name Bellstone Christian School was chosen. In this way we acknowledge the history of the school building (previously the Bell-Stone Public School), partially preserving the name for the community in which we live, while at the same time stating clearly that it is our desire to use the building to provide Christian education to the children who will walk through the halls in the years ahead!