A committee to explore changing the name of George Jay Elementary School will be set up after questions were raised about Jay’s attitude toward the Chinese community.
“I am grateful to all the parents, teachers, community members and trustees who have been pushing for this over the last decade, and the current George Jay PAC led by Angela Cooper-Carmichael who have taken up the cause,” Greater Victoria school board chairwoman Jordan Watters said in a Facebook post.
“George Jay was a former Victoria Board chair whose anti-Chinese racism and segregationist policies harmed children, families and the Victoria community.”
The school is at 1118 Princess Ave. in Victoria.
Watters posted details of Jay’s past, including initiating a 1907 regulation that Chinese children had to pass an English test before being allowed in public schools. It did not to apply to children of any other nationalities.
Children of Chinese families who were born in Canada were eventually allowed to attend the schools.
In the early 1920s, Jay directed that more than 200 Chinese elementary students in public schools should be moved to facilities on Kings Road and in Rock Bay. It led to a strike by Chinese students that lasted a year.
