Donna McCarthy, a 21-year resident of Plainsboro and a friend of the family of Kenny Baker, a suicide victim, spoke out during the School Board’s initial deliberations on the naming policy. She said removing the paragraph about suicides was one good step. “They can’t be perpetuating a stigma. A blue-ribbon school district has to have more forward thinking than that, and they proved that by taking the paragraph out,” McCarthy said.
“You would never blame someone from dying of cancer. You shouldn’t blame someone from dying because they completed suicide. I truly believe that suicide is a result of mental illness,” she said.
But McCarthy attended the September 11 meeting to voice another concern. Although McCarthy says that naming the baseball field at North after David Bachner would be “fitting,” she nevertheless has concluded that WW-P’s facilities should not be named after anybody. “My heart truly goes out to his family, but I just don’t think anything should be named after people because there are so many examples of extraordinary people who come through the district, and there are also other kids who have passed away,” she said.
McCarthy says the new policy needs to be “fleshed out, discussed, and then voted on.” She says the district has not been clear about the guidelines being only for naming the facilities or for the selection process to nominate names.
What makes a person worthy may be subjective, says McCarthy, as she brought up one Olympic Gold Medal winner hailing from WW-P. “Does that mean we are now going to name a building after Rebecca Soni?” McCarthy asked, referring to the Olympic swimming star who attended High School North.
McCarthy said if she would be okay with being the only person to speak up and say WW-P’s facilities should not be named after anyone until the criteria for submitting a person’s name for consideration can be “spelled out very clearly.”
“We are opening up a big door here and if you open that door, you need to be fair to everybody. Special interest groups will be coming out of the woodwork with kids that they feel are special to them for buildings to be named after — and the same with faculty. If somebody retires after 30 plus years, you will have people wanting to name things after each person,” McCarthy said.
She brought up the example of High School North gym teacher Trevor Warner, who in 2010 saved the life of a 15-year-old student who was having a heart attack. “[Warner] was very humble about the experience but it was on the TV news and in the papers, so should we name the gym after him?” she said.
McCarthy also brought up Jack Rutledge, a boy in WW-P with physical disabilities who died at an early age. “Everyone loved dealing with him and he had a very positive outlook on life despite his disabilities. Should something be named after him? Everybody has someone special who touched their life, but we don’t have enough buildings or venues to accommodate all that,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy, a marketing consultant, works at a financial services firm in West Windsor. Her husband, Chuck, also works in financial services. They have two daughters, including Nicole, a junior at North. Her older daughter, Christine, graduated from North in 2011 and just started her sophomore year at Penn State. Her own children have relayed fond memories of North’s long-time music teacher, Mary Jacobsen, who retired this year after 22 years with the district (WW-P News, June 8).
“Her students loved her, and she would be someone they could consider too,” said McCarthy, illustrating the many people in the community whose names could be considered for posterity.
