The school
opened as a one-room schoolhouse in September 1937. Named the Sunrise School, the student body in its first year consisted of 10 boys and six girls. The school's first teacher was Mary Collins who would later become Mary McMillan.
During the school year 2003-04, the school district decided to change the name of the school to honour McMillan who not only served as the first teacher but went on to become principal. The name was officially changed to the Sunrise-McMillan Elementary School.
But someone made a boo boo. Instead of the correct name, the school was renamed the Sunrise-McMill
ian School, an extra 'i' having been added to 'McMillan.' The error went unnoticed for nine years until a relative of McMillan's contacted the Forth Worth Independent School District and told them them the name of school's first teacher was spelled incorrectly.
In a humourous posting on its
website, the school spoke about their attempts at financial efficiency and said they have an extra letter "I" for sale for anyone who wants to purchase it. The school then announced they were making changes to their website, Facebook page, and to such things as certificates, business cards, t-shirts, visitors' passes, and posters.
Principal Marion Mouton, was quoted by
KXAS as saying,
Our day-to-day things that we just take for granted now and, as were coming up with it, we're seeing 'OK, that's something else we need to fix.'
The name on the outside of the elementary school was changed on Monday.
Teacher Jouet Dotson came up with a way to teach the children about the correct spelling of their school. She said,
You know how we say there is no 'i' in team? We could say, 'well, at Sunrise-McMillan, we're a team, so there's no 'i' in the last part of McMillan.'
As reported by
KXAS, The Fort Worth Independent School District will not say what the estimated cost of correcting the mistake will be.
