Students from Morris Elementary School District 54 will start the 2018-19 school year under a new school name.

Instead of White Oak Elementary, the school building now will be named Morris Grade School, as voted upon by the school board Monday at the regular meeting.

All board members, except for Bonnie Cap, who wanted to name the school Shabbona Grade School, voted yes to the motion to name the school Morris Grade School. Administrators brought three options to the board, the two mentioned as well as White Oak Grade School. The grade school end to the name was used because the school houses preschool through eighth grades.

During the 2016-17 school year, the district combined Shabbona Middle School and White Oak Elementary on the White Oak Elementary site. The one building could house all of the students from both schools, so in order to save the district money, the schools combined and the district rented out the former Shabbona Middle School building to various businesses and organizations.

Principal David Raffel said since that merger, the school has felt divided because some students would associate as White Oak and others Shabbona. He said he knows the name change was discussed from the beginning, but in fall 2017, a board member had asked about the plan of action, so the district began a plan.

In February, the school district began to take name suggestions from the public, students and staff, and the three above were the most mentioned name ideas. However, out of the 100 different suggestions, some such as School McSchoolFace, Cornfield Elementary, School of Rock and Glass Palace, among others, did not make the cut.

The district knew it also wanted to keep the school mascot as the Braves, so the name had to correlate with the mascot.

On April 16, Raffel said a committee of parents, board members, community members and teachers met to share suggestions about the name change.

“There was a lot of open dialogue and a lot of personal feelings," Raffel said. "A new school name was emotional for people. We had to find a balance of the new and how to honor the past of the district and community."

After the meeting, the three choices were given to the teachers, and teacher Trudy DesLauriers helped to educate the students about the building name and teach them that there was a reason for a building name, Raffel said.

He said the students learned about Chief Shabbona, Isaac Newton Morris, who the town was named after, and the history of how White Oak Elementary received its name. He said when White Oak Elementary was built, it was the biggest elementary school in the state and was named after the state tree. The students voted, and then those suggestions and numbers were turned into the board to review and vote upon during the meeting Monday.

Raffel said the process was exciting for him because he learned a lot of historical facts about the community, went to the Grundy County Historical Society Museum, visited Chief Shabbona’s grave and read a historical book written by DesLauriers.

The main goal, however, was “for all of us to have one common identity. We are all family and community here and we can all be one thing and build on that. We are one unified school community,” Raffel said.

The main reasons discussed at the meeting to not have the school be named after Chief Shabbona was confusion with the Shabbona Middle School building, which may be renamed soon as well, and the members did not want the name to be the former name of one school or the other, but a fresh name.

Raffel said the letters on the building will be changed this summer, banners across the school will be changed and most likely paid for by credits from its Lifetouch contracts and letterheads will be redesigned. He said the school will have to decide on uniforms, some only say Braves, which can be used regardless of name change.

In other business, the school lunch fees will increase 5 cents to $2.90 for the 2018-19 school year. Bookkeeper Jill Mills gave a synopsis of the amendment to the fiscal 2018 budget, which will be on display for 30 days, and a hearing will be held at the June 21 school board meeting.

Mills said the big things that changed were that the state switched funding from general state aid, which used a student attendance formula to an evidence-based funding formula, which funds the school on the number of students enrolled and the number of staff needed. She said the district received an increase of $300,000.

She said that actual revenues were $18,189,904 and actual expenditures were $17,747,902. Mills had used conservative numbers when she created the budget because she was not sure if all four payments from the state would arrive during the year. She said all four payments would be great, but did not want the district to be dependant on them. There was a $447,000 increase in fund balances that were part of the financial planning in order to maintain tax rates in times of big bond payments.

The next school board meeting will take place at 6 p.m. June 21 at the District 54 board room in the cafeteria at 2001 Dupont Ave.