“Hays CISD is a much different community than it once was, and so is the world,” the administration said in a prepared statement released today. “We all grow and learn. As a school district, we are, in fact, in the business of growing and learning. The administration believes that it is time to change the mascot and open a new chapter at Hays High School – one that, moving forward, can be embraced and celebrated by all.”
Beginning today, students will have the opportunity to select from a list of proposed new mascots and the results of that process will also be forwarded to the board, according to today’s announcement. In an earlier process, students were asked to pick a new mascot and the top responses were “Hawks, Hornets, Patriots, Cowboys, Eagles, Hurricanes, Hyenas, Phoenixes, Lions, Mavericks, Wildcats, Dragons, and Honey Badgers,” according to the administration’s announcement. The district has prepared what it is calling “a choice selection sheet” that will be used by students to vote on a new mascot and the 13 proposed new mascots listed above are the top names on that selection sheet. Students are supposed to begin receiving links to that selection sheet beginning today and “the choice selection sheet responses will be presented to the board to consider, should the board vote to change the mascot,” according to the administrators.
“When nearly 60 percent of the students, and more than 70 percent of the teachers and staff members, show little to no comfort with the current mascot, it ceases to serve its intended purpose,” the Hays CISD administration said in today’s prepared statement. “When more than a quarter of the students, and nearly a third of the teachers and staff members, are very uncomfortable with the current mascot; that mascot fails in its objective. When a mascot mires the school in political controversy and pits students, families, and community members against each other; it is time to change.”
“The mere fact that the rebel mascot is indisputably divisive is enough to warrant its change,” the administrators said.
Should the board avoid political grandstanding and do the right thing by voting to change the school’s mascot, administrators said “the district will help Hays High School make the transition to the new mascot based on a workable time line that would be developed and announced after a board decision. In anticipation of a possible change, the district will begin preparing an inventory, with associated costs, of items that would need to be changed, including uniforms and signage.”
The administration said no costs estimates for the transition had been prepared as of today.
The Hays CISD survey was sent to 2,325 Hays High School students in grades 9 through 12 and 265 teachers and staff members at the school; 49.55 percent of the students and 55.1 percent of the teachers/staff responded. Of those, 59.37 percent of the students and 71.91 percent of the teachers/staff expressed “little to no comfort level with (the) mascot.”
The statement also noted school trustees might consider, “when making its decision, a community petition that was submitted through an internet website that had more than 1,400 signatures as of July 2. Students have also formed a committee to change the mascot and have reported to news organizations that they have a petition that has garnered more than 500 signatures. Furthermore, board members are reading the many comments on the subject posted to community-managed social media sites, as well as sites operated by news media organizations.”
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