POWELL — Olentangy Local School’s 18th elementary school, which is slated to open for the 2027-28 school year along Bean-Oller Road, officially has a name: Deer Haven Elementary School.
The name was selected over two other final name recommendations: Mill Run Elementary School and Riverstone Elementary School.
How did the board make the decision?
All three recommendations came from a community survey requesting titles for the new school. The survey received 387 submissions throughout March.
Chief communications officer Krista Davis presented the outcome of the community survey at the April 9 school board meeting.
She told the board in the past, elementary naming themes included street names and subdivisions like Glen Oak, regional geography names like Liberty, nature-inspired names like Alum Creek, and other historical references for the region like Freedom Trail.
“Reflecting in our past practices, the district has not named any of its 27 existing buildings with a proper name,” Davis said. “While the school will be located on Bean Oller Road, both Bean and Oller were actually family names in the area.
“Additionally, other suggested named of individuals, while absolutely admirable, do not fit within our policy directive to follow local history or geography,” she said.
“We appreciate the spirit and passion with which these names were submitted, and know that there are many other avenues to honor those families and individuals.”
Board President Brandon Lester shared one of the individual names that was submitted was that of a student who died by suicide.
“I know the board appreciates this sentiment of the community greatly in wanting to honor a student this way,” Lester said.
“[We’ll try] to do everything we can to support students to bring that to life to be as a living memorial,” he said. “I really want to thank the people who brought forward that idea because it’s an important one.”
The other final nominations
Davis told the board she and her team sorted through each submitted name, and looked at the trends before presenting the final three suggestions.
“After name suggestions related to Bean and Oller, Deer Haven was one of the most repeated concepts,” Davis said.
The name stems from Deer Haven Park, which is located roughly a mile from the new school.
Davis pointed out the district’s long history of partnering with Preservation Parks to do things such as educational programs, class picnics, field trips and more.
The next choice, Mill Run, reflected a nod to early industry in the area which included grist and saw mill production. Initial Native American settlers built some of the first mills in the area, Davis said.
The last choice, River Stone, drew from key geological features, including the Olentangy River and the Delaware limestone formation that underlines the Liberty Township area.
What comes next
The communications team, with the help of parents, will now focus on developing a school mascot and school colors. They will announce those logos and colors at the end of the school year.
School officials broke ground on the new 83,000 square-foot school on March 26, and construction is well underway.
Olentangy Schools is scheduled to break ground on its fifth high school on Bunty Station Road in July, with completion slated for 2028. The district will conduct a similar naming process for that school.
Olentangy’s student enrollment is projected to approach 2,000 new students by the 2028-29 school year, with an addition of over 300 staff members needed to serve those students, according to the school’s website.
School officials previously told Delaware Source enrollment is not expected to plateau until 2050, meaning the district will only continue to build new schools.
The next school board meeting will be a regular meeting on April 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Olentangy Administrative Offices.
