Dear Parents,
The School Leadership Team and the Board charged me with sharing our school's new name, and I have found this charge rather challenging. I can not simply announce the name because I know many will have questions, not understand why we are changing our name and the origins of our new name. Its roots are special to Tom and me, so finding the words to share this information has been a little more of an emotional journey than I expected it to be. It has been hard to find the right words. I recognize this message is long and shares personal stories. I promise there is a point, so I ask that you stay with me to the end and celebrate the unveiling with us.
Why are we changing our name?
The first and the most obvious reason; we relocated our campus in 2016, and we are no longer in the Mountain Island Lake area. Our service area expanded. Today, our student population is from many areas in and surrounding Charlotte; Mountain Island Lake, Steele Creek, Belmont, Mount Holly, Huntersville, Cornelius, South Charlotte, etc. Many families have commented that they almost did not apply to MID because they thought we were in Mountain Island Lake area too far away from their homes. We are near the airport and on a good transit route for many commuters. We desire to have a name that reflects the school community we have built rather than a name pinpointing a geographical location.
Two other schools, very close to us, have Mountain Island in their name, and it causes much confusion. The Office of Charter Schools mixes up our information and data continuously. MID is often left off essential communications from NCDPI and the Office of Charter Schools because they sent it to the other Mountain Island schools, not realizing they missed one. We are constantly receiving other schools' packages, and they receive ours. New staff interviews and new families arrived at the wrong campus. The various schools are constantly redirecting individuals to the right school. The worst is when existing families encourage friends to apply, and they apply to the wrong school. Once the mistake is determined, it is often after our lottery and too late for us to admit them. When positive or negative things occur at any one of the numerous Mountain Island schools, individuals from the community can associate those things with the wrong school.
An excellent example of this was the year we debuted our marching band, pre-Covid. I could overhear the conversations from the onlookers of the parade, and many thought our marching band was the with another school. Even though we had a banner with our school's name and logo in our school's colors, we were associated with another school. We are so proud of our students, the school we have become, and the school we are evolving into. We are a unique school with a different mission and way of operating. We want to celebrate that and receive recognition for our accomplishments and uniqueness without confusion with other schools.
Finally, we have the longest name. Our original name was Mountain Island Day; it was short, and we liked it. When we converted from a private school to a charter school, one of the Office of Charter school's requirements was that we changed our name. They required us to place the word charter in our name so the public would recognize we were a charter school and no longer a private school. The rest is history. We ended up with the longest name trying to make our name sound different enough from the other local charter school with Mountain Island in their name. We ended up with a name that we settled for rather than the one we initially chose for ourselves.
Why change the name now?
MID has always been the smallest of the three schools with Mountain Island in the name. The schools' confusion was much less in the past because honestly, we were small; many probably did not know we existed. We have grown tremendously in the past three years, and due to that growth, we are more recognized. The larger we grow, the more confusion there is between the different schools.
We are adding new facilities and fields to our campus, and if we ever desired to change the name, now is the perfect time to do so. We can market the new name at the same time we market our new campus. We can logo the new buildings and athletic facilities as they are built rather than trying to retrofit them later with a name change.
Naming the new building-Thomas Jackson Winstead Education Hall
Parents play a pivotal role in their children's life. They are the pillars of support, guidance, and love. No matter how old a child gets, there's nothing more comforting and soothing than their parent's approval and love. Even adult children look to their parents for support, guidance, and acceptance during the worst times. They are also the first individuals we desire to share our accomplishments with during the best times.
Tom and I have been fortunate; to have all four of our parents walk alongside us for many years. They were all there from the onset before the dreams of MID ever sprouted. They watched those dreams take root, evolve, and grow. All four of our parents provided support, a listening ear, advice, babysitting, and a willingness to aid us with any task. Because of all of them, we found success.
June 13th, 2019, two years ago, Tom's father lost his battle with cancer. The last few weeks of his illness, we sat by him in Hospice. At that time, I was working on securing the funding for our new building and heavily into the designs for our new facility that will open this August. Each day my father-in-law would inquire about the new facility. He desired to know how the plans were progressing; he gazed in awe at renderings and plans for the new facility he would never live to see. He was amazed by the accomplishment that unfolded before him on paper, and he was so proud. He would have given anything to be here today to witness the reality of it, and we would give anything for him to be here to share in this exciting time.
When we finalized the financing for the new building in December 2019, the Board recognized our efforts in securing the funding for the campus expansion by granting us naming rights on the new building. That December, I gave my husband, Tom, a Christmas gift of naming the new building after his father, Thomas Jackson Winstead, also our son's namesakes. When we enter the new Thomas Jackson Winstead Education Hall this fall, my father-in-law, who could not be with us physically, will be there in spirit as we celebrate this accomplishment.
Naming the school
I often joke that MID is my 4th child so the thought of changing the name of something we founded and love so much was an arduous task. We had a multipage list with possible names for the school, and none of them felt right. We received many suggestions. The top recommendation was Winstead Community School. While we are incredibly humbled and appreciative of that recommendation, Tom and I did not want to use our last name. We are still actively building the school, have big plans for our future, and do not plan to go anywhere anytime soon. We did not want our name on the building because MID is more than us. It is a community of many beautiful individuals who together have formed this amazing school.
We searched a thesaurus, trying to find the word or combination of words to describe the school, but none fit. MID is unique and has a personality, so we felt the school deserved more than a few descriptive words strung together. We knew it had to contain a name, a special name.
Winstead was recommended by so many; so we began looking at names in the founder's family. Tom and I's families have strong roots in the community, such strong roots that some family names considered were already taken and actively used for other local schools, parks, and roadways. We did not want to share a name anymore, so we crossed many of those ideas off the list.
At this point, we were all pretty discouraged. I was starting to feel as if we would never find a name. Then it happened like it always does. The moment you almost give up is when it usually all comes together. In a brainstorming session, the new name was said out loud; and we knew it was the perfect name for our Mariner community.
My father-in-law loved to hunt and fish, so when my husband turned 18 years old, my father-in-law gave my husband a lifetime hunting and fishing license as a birthday gift. This tattered card has been in my husband's wallet as long as I have known him. Shortly after my father-in-law passed away, my husband shared that he wanted to give our children a lifetime hunting and fishing license as his father did for him. I pulled that tattered card out of my husband's wallet one day to see who I needed to call for the license. When I did this, I noticed something on the card that I never noticed before. The card had an inscription printed on it from my father-in-law to my husband, and it said, "So I'll be there."
When we opened MID in 2009, there were no private school or charter options in our area. We desired a different type of school than our community had to offer for our first son entering Kindergarten. We knew the local public school was not the best fit for him but still wanted him to attend a school within the community. Tom and I decided to grow our preschool operations to include a small private school to provide the environment we knew our son and many other children needed and deserved. It is funny how things work out because opening a school was never in Tom and I's plan. We opened a school because our community needed school of choice options and "So we could be there" for our son in that next stage of his life. Jackson was the first name on the MID rosters and the initial inspiration for the school.
The meaning of the name Jackson is "God has been gracious; has shown favor." It is my belief that God has been gracious and has shown us favor because we accepted the calling of "I'll be there." when needed. We continued to evolve when our students and communities' needs changed, converting from a private school to a charter school. Through it all, we have received grace and have been shown favor. Jackson represents our past as Tom's Grandmother's maiden name; it is a name honoring the founder's pillar of support. Jackson represents our future, our inspiration, the reason the school exists. Jackson represents our promise to your child and this community "So I'll be there." The way we were for our son, our present and past students, and just as our family was for us. This school community is a part of us, like family, so it is fitting that this school banners such a precious name with such meaning, Jackson Day School.
Sincerely,
Tammy Winstead
Dean of Operations
Jackson Day School
