Taconic Community, Pittsfield Residents Asked to Weigh in on New Mascot10:03AM / Thursday, October 07, 2021 | |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Taconic High School is seeking a new name and mascot and is looking to the community for inspiration.
The School Committee a year ago voted to change 50-year-old team mascot and begin the process of determining a new, more culturally acceptable identity for the vocational school.
The Taconic teams had been known as the Braves and used a logo with a Native American. Officials decided it was time to retire the outdated mascot, following the lead of numerous other schools and professional teams that have used Native American imagery.
The school district has enlisted the services of Heard Strategy & Storytelling, a marketing and communications services agency, which offered pro bono rebranding services to any Massachusetts high school that made the decision to change its mascot. To date, five schools, including Taconic, have taken the offer.
"We're thrilled to begin the important work of making our school and our mascot representative of everyone in the district," said Principal Matthew Bishop. "We're excited to see what ideas the community has during the open survey portion of the process."
Working with members of the Taconic High School Mascot Subcommittee, Heard recently helped engineer a strategy of compiling community input for a period of time, with the goal of distilling that data into actionable items so the subcommittee can make further decisions and recommendations.
The online public survey opens Wednesday, Oct. 7, and will remain open for two weeks. The survey can be accessed via the link on the Taconic High School website or here.
Following the collection of responses received from the survey, the subcommittee will begin narrowing the choices to a smaller list of finalists in anticipation of presenting them to the student body and School Committee for an eventual vote.
The rebranding process will take several months to complete. Starting with the community survey, school officials are hopeful to have a new mascot unveiled by the end of 2021.
Students, alumni, and Pittsfield community members are encouraged to participate in the survey in an effort to reach the goal of establishing a new name and mascot that is relevant and relatable to both current students and alumni, as well as portray a positive, uplifting image.
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