Cheyenne Mountain High School Changes Mascot After Years of Criticism | Colorado Springs News

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Students at Cheyenne Mountain High School will wear a new nickname next year, red-tailed hawks, after the school rejected the Indian nickname that some advocates have called offensive for years.

The D-12 school board has officially adopted the Red-tailed Hawk as a new mascot to represent Cheyenne Mountain High School, Cheyenne Mountain staff wrote in a statement posted to the school’s website.

In the statement, the school said the majority of people who responded to the districts survey for new mascot choices out of a total of 2,700 chose the red-tailed hawk as the school’s new mascot.

Cheyenne Mountain High School’s new “Red-Tailed Hawks” logo.

Cheyenne Mountain High School

The Cheyenne Mountain School Board decided to remove the mascot at a meeting on March 15, marking the first time the school has changed mascots since the 1940s.

Lawyers and Opponents Respond to Removal of ‘Indians’ Mascot from Cheyenne Mountain

The move came after decades of eyebrows raised against the school’s mascot by members of his community. A resolution introduced in September to remove the nickname called on protesters to rally around the school district’s administration building in an intense rally last fall.

The resolution that abolished the school’s nickname was passed in mid-March with a 4-1 vote.

Protesters rally outside Cheyenne Mountain School District Board meeting over retiring mascot, team name Springs area schools are looking for a way forward on names and native american symbols

The name retreat also came more than three months before Governor Jared Polis enacted Senate Bill 116, which will ban the use of Indian mascots and nicknames in all public schools.

Nearly two dozen schools will be affected by the mandatory mascot changes that will flow from the bill, but the Colorado home education committee has made arrangements to have schools spending related to changing their mascots. or nicknames, such as uniform replacements, be compensated by the state.

Bill to ban schools use of Indian mascots, nicknames in Colorado move to Polis Governor signs election, tribal nation and broadband expansion bills

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