Last night the Coxsackie-Athens Central School District Board of Education voted to retire the school mascot and name Indians here at C-A. This has been discussed most recently for several months, though it has been a topic of discussion in our schools for years. Hundreds of school community members expressed their opinions on this topic in a variety of ways. A forum was hosted by the board liaison committee to gather input as well.
The district will now embark on a two-part parallel process. The first part will be to develop and implement a systemic curriculum K-12 that educates our students on the indigenous peoples of our region as well as begin the process of instituting a land acknowledgement on our campuses. These steps represent a starting point in honoring the indigenous peoples, and acknowledging the land that surrounds us is part of who the indigenous people are, and that it reflects their histories.
The other part will be asking community members and the student body to take an active role in determining a new name/mascot that will bring pride and excitement to the entire C-A Community. The Board of Education liaison committee will be asking for volunteers to sit on a committee to help steer this process forward.
In the next months and into the fall we will be gathering ideas on names and images. Through a series of votes that the students and community will be involved in we will narrow the choices down so that by late fall we will have a few final choices that will result in a final selection that is:
- Original
- One that allows us to create a great logo that we can brand
- Embodies both the academic and athletic feel of our school/community
- One that we can build fan experience around
- Aligned to our district’s core values, vision and mission
- One that honors:
- Tradition
- Pride
- Community
The district will then embark on rebranding the district with our new mascot and name while continuing to utilize our traditional C-A interlocking logo as well.