School board of directors establishes timeline for new school mascot

 

    At their regular meeting in June, the South Bend School District board of directors established a new timeline for selecting a mascot for South Bend Jr. Sr. High School.  This action follows a year-long pause from when the mascot matter was last discussed.  The new timeline sets March 1, 2023 as the date by which a new mascot will be selected.

    The mascot issue stems from a recent Washington State law (HB 1356) banning the use of Native American names for school mascots, which was signed by Governor Jay Inslee in 2021.

    Though the school did some extensive work to identify and select a new mascot during the spring of 2021, no clear mascot replacement was identified.  Rather than rush the decision, the board elected to pause the selection process until now.

From now until August 31, 2022, the board invites the public to provide ideas for the new mascot.  Input can be provided one of two ways: 1) sending an email to school director Wendy Manlow at wmanlow@southbendschools.org; or 2) completing a feedback form found at: https://forms.gle/ezirv5igjC9hKML37.  

The board will select possible mascots from the summer input collection and provide visuals for the public to view at upcoming fall sports events.  Collected feedback will then be shared with a focus group in January, 2023 preceding the March 1, 2023 deadline.  The focus group will evaluate the collected mascot input and provide a recommendation to the board.