The Hays CISD board of trustees voted unanimously this evening to retire the Rebel mascot at Hays High School and to allow the district’s superintendent to oversee the selection of a replacement.
The only debate on the subject came when District 3 trustee Dr. Michael Sanchez argued the board should also be involved in choosing a new mascot, but none of the other trustees agreed with him.
“Hate is not our community,” said board president Esperanza Orosco, trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep her emotions in check as she made the motion to approve the mascot retirement, a motion seconded by vice president Will McManus.
The Rebel mascot will not disappear immediately and school trustee Vanessa Petrea said she hopes it will remain throughout the 2020-21 school year. What is more likely, however, is that students will be involved in some sort of mascot selection process, the results of which will be forwarded to Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright’s office and that new mascot will receive his blessing perhaps as early as the beginning of the next calendar year. Trustees did voice the opinion that they would prefer the mascot be animal, not human, in nature, saying a human mascot, such as Patriots or Cowboys, the two names that topped a recent on-line student poll, could also prove to be divisive.
“I am against the new mascot being a person,” Petrea said. “That could be deemed controversial in another 50 years. I would like to remain consistent with our two other high schools and pick an animal or an object that we can all rally behind. I think this change is overdue. I am very proud of the students and community members who stepped up and used the current shift in momentum to bring this important issue to the forefront.”
“It is past time for this change,” McManus said. “We don’t want to have 25 percent of our students at this or any of other campuses to feel intimidated or unwelcome by something as simple as a mascot.”
McManus, a graduate of Hays High School, said the Hays students who spoke to the board during the public comments section of the meeting “demonstrate for me the quality of the education they’re receiving at Hays and that’s what I want us to be known for.
“I am deeply saddened that our students were persecuted on-line for something as simple as advocating for change,” McManus said. “Honestly, it breaks my heart. And adults that may have been a part of that really need to spend some time reflecting on what matters to their life. I am really, honestly upset about it. If students want to battle one another over something, that’s fine. But any adults creating fake accounts to troll students on-line is not acceptable in this community.
“This is about the future and not the past,” he said. “Although I am part of that past, I want to help define the future and that’s why I fully support this change.”
Trustee Merideth Keller, a 10-year veteran on the school board, said she wished the mascot change had happened years earlier. She said the board banned the confederate flag at Hays in 2012 and in 2015 decided not to overrule a decision to change the school’s fight song from “Dixie.”
“I wish we had retired the rebel mascot back in 2015 and I am sorry that we did not,” Keller said. “Now we have an entire cohort of kids that have to suffer through this conversation again and the vitriol associated with it again. I apologize to those students and to the teachers and all of the staff because we didn’t handle it when we should have.
“Institutional racism is 100 percent real,” she continued. “And this body actually has the opportunity to do something about that. We need to dig deeper. We need to look at the people of color who are in trouble more than their counterparts who are white. We need to dig down into the data. We need to look at our policies and our procedures and our training and make sure that we are doing the best that we can to educate our kids. I want to learn more about how we’re dealing with institutional racism with our policies and our procedures. How are we keeping kids safe, healthy and in an inclusive environment.”
The Kyle Report
Showing posts with label Hays High School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hays High School. Show all posts
Thursday, July 16, 2020
School board votes to retire Hays High mascot
The Hays CISD board of trustees voted unanimously this evening to retire the Rebel mascot at Hays High School and to allow the district’s superintendent to oversee the selection of a replacement.
The only debate on the subject came when District 3 trustee Dr. Michael Sanchez argued the board should also be involved in choosing a new mascot, but none of the other trustees agreed with him.
“Hate is not our community,” said board president Esperanza Orosco, trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep her emotions in check as she made the motion to approve the mascot retirement, a motion seconded by vice president Will McManus.
(More to come)
The only debate on the subject came when District 3 trustee Dr. Michael Sanchez argued the board should also be involved in choosing a new mascot, but none of the other trustees agreed with him.
“Hate is not our community,” said board president Esperanza Orosco, trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep her emotions in check as she made the motion to approve the mascot retirement, a motion seconded by vice president Will McManus.
(More to come)
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Hays High will keep Rebel mascot at least through start of school year
The results are in and the students of Hays High School have spoken loudly and clearly. And their message? “We really can’t be bothered with this right now.”
And that’s probably the right message at this time, especially when it comes to something like figuring out what the school’s new mascot will or should be. For one thing, no one knows for sure if the students will even be returning to the school campus. Some may and others may not. According to the school district’s web site, parents of Hays High School students “will have an option to keep your children learning from home or send them to school in-person.” I would imagine making that decision is weighing more heavily on the minds of students and parents than what the new mascot should be.
I wrote recently that the district provided an on-line link where students could select their choice for a new mascot. Only about a third of the students (902, to be exact) participated in the process. The Patriots received the most votes — 143, in all, which amounts to a whopping 5 percent of the student population. That is by no means any kind of mandate. In a classic understatement, school administrators said today in an official statement. “The administration does not believe it was able to obtain enough student response during this process to be confident that the responses fully represent what students would like to see as a new mascot.” Ya think?
Which is probably one of the reasons the school trustees won’t be asked to select a new mascot when they meet Thursday to consider whether they even want to join the 21st Century and rid the school of its current Rebel mascot. That means, according to the district statement, the Rebels will continue to be the school’s mascot at least through the start of the upcoming school year and quite possibly for the entire school year.
“Though the campus could begin phasing out ‘rebel’ depictions on websites, walls, and other places around the building immediately, an official mascot change-over date would likely not occur until the spring semester or at the start of the 2021-2022 school year,” district administrators said today.
In fact, the administration wants to take the board completely out of the process of selecting a new mascot. The administration said in today’s statement it plans to recommend at Thursday’s school board meeting “that the board retire the Rebel mascot and authorize prior approval to allow the superintendent to determine a new mascot, without requiring an additional board vote, following a student selection process that would occur once students return to class, whether in-person or virtually, for the 2020-2021 school year,”
There appears to be an out, though, for those Hays students who don’t wish to be a “Rebel” during the upcoming school year should the trustees decide to dump the racist moniker.
“Students who do not wish to wear uniforms with ‘Rebels’ on them would not be required to do so,” administrators said. “References to ‘Rebels’ on their uniforms could be covered.”
The administration estimated it will cost, at the most, $600,000 to replace the mascot, a sum that would be split between the next two fiscal year budgets. This would cover replacing student uniforms as well as Rebel references painted on school buildings, the floor of the campus gym and various signs. However, the administration said, “If uniforms are patched and not replaced until their normal replacement cycle, the cost impact of a mascot change would be lower.”
“Digital conversions, such as letterhead templates, website markings, social media graphics, and the development of a new mascot graphics package, would not incur any expense to the district,” administrators said. “Branding services, including logo and graphics design, are provided free to the district through the existing district vendors that supply athletic uniforms and equipment.”
At first, I was not that enthralled by the first-place finisher — the Patriots — that the plurality of students chose in the on-line selection process. I associate it too much with New England’s NFL team and I’m not sure such a scandal ridden franchise should be one a local high school should emulate. But the more, I thought about it, the better it sounded. For one thing, it seems to have some kind of relationship to Rebel; perhaps students regarded “Patriot” as the antithesis to “Rebel.” It also rolls nicely off the tongue, especially when you combine it with “Patriot Pride” or events such as a “Patriot Parade” or “Patriot Picnic.”
The second place finisher was “Cowboys” (127 votes), which made me even more convinced NFL names played a huge part in this voting. Hays Hawks (123 votes), my personal favorite, was third followed by Dragons (95), Wildcats (93), Hurricanes (70), Honey Badgers (56), Mavericks (45), Phoenixes (38), Hyenas (33), Hornets (30), Eagles (21), and Lions (20).
Students attending middle schools that feed into Hays also had the opportunity to select from the list and they went with the alliteration options, choosing Honey Badgers first, Hornets second and Hawks third.
And that’s probably the right message at this time, especially when it comes to something like figuring out what the school’s new mascot will or should be. For one thing, no one knows for sure if the students will even be returning to the school campus. Some may and others may not. According to the school district’s web site, parents of Hays High School students “will have an option to keep your children learning from home or send them to school in-person.” I would imagine making that decision is weighing more heavily on the minds of students and parents than what the new mascot should be.
I wrote recently that the district provided an on-line link where students could select their choice for a new mascot. Only about a third of the students (902, to be exact) participated in the process. The Patriots received the most votes — 143, in all, which amounts to a whopping 5 percent of the student population. That is by no means any kind of mandate. In a classic understatement, school administrators said today in an official statement. “The administration does not believe it was able to obtain enough student response during this process to be confident that the responses fully represent what students would like to see as a new mascot.” Ya think?
Which is probably one of the reasons the school trustees won’t be asked to select a new mascot when they meet Thursday to consider whether they even want to join the 21st Century and rid the school of its current Rebel mascot. That means, according to the district statement, the Rebels will continue to be the school’s mascot at least through the start of the upcoming school year and quite possibly for the entire school year.
“Though the campus could begin phasing out ‘rebel’ depictions on websites, walls, and other places around the building immediately, an official mascot change-over date would likely not occur until the spring semester or at the start of the 2021-2022 school year,” district administrators said today.
In fact, the administration wants to take the board completely out of the process of selecting a new mascot. The administration said in today’s statement it plans to recommend at Thursday’s school board meeting “that the board retire the Rebel mascot and authorize prior approval to allow the superintendent to determine a new mascot, without requiring an additional board vote, following a student selection process that would occur once students return to class, whether in-person or virtually, for the 2020-2021 school year,”
There appears to be an out, though, for those Hays students who don’t wish to be a “Rebel” during the upcoming school year should the trustees decide to dump the racist moniker.
“Students who do not wish to wear uniforms with ‘Rebels’ on them would not be required to do so,” administrators said. “References to ‘Rebels’ on their uniforms could be covered.”
The administration estimated it will cost, at the most, $600,000 to replace the mascot, a sum that would be split between the next two fiscal year budgets. This would cover replacing student uniforms as well as Rebel references painted on school buildings, the floor of the campus gym and various signs. However, the administration said, “If uniforms are patched and not replaced until their normal replacement cycle, the cost impact of a mascot change would be lower.”
“Digital conversions, such as letterhead templates, website markings, social media graphics, and the development of a new mascot graphics package, would not incur any expense to the district,” administrators said. “Branding services, including logo and graphics design, are provided free to the district through the existing district vendors that supply athletic uniforms and equipment.”
At first, I was not that enthralled by the first-place finisher — the Patriots — that the plurality of students chose in the on-line selection process. I associate it too much with New England’s NFL team and I’m not sure such a scandal ridden franchise should be one a local high school should emulate. But the more, I thought about it, the better it sounded. For one thing, it seems to have some kind of relationship to Rebel; perhaps students regarded “Patriot” as the antithesis to “Rebel.” It also rolls nicely off the tongue, especially when you combine it with “Patriot Pride” or events such as a “Patriot Parade” or “Patriot Picnic.”
The second place finisher was “Cowboys” (127 votes), which made me even more convinced NFL names played a huge part in this voting. Hays Hawks (123 votes), my personal favorite, was third followed by Dragons (95), Wildcats (93), Hurricanes (70), Honey Badgers (56), Mavericks (45), Phoenixes (38), Hyenas (33), Hornets (30), Eagles (21), and Lions (20).
Students attending middle schools that feed into Hays also had the opportunity to select from the list and they went with the alliteration options, choosing Honey Badgers first, Hornets second and Hawks third.
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