ELMA, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Board of Regents will soon vote on the regulations to have all New York State school districts change Indigenous mascot logos, and the Iroquois School District may have to commit.
The Iroquois School District board members strongly voiced their own opinions about it at Wednesday’s board meeting.
“I keep hearing from the community is when when when,” says a school board member of the district. “What’s going to be and how it’s going to be. I think this would kind of give them some idea and we would know next month if we’re going to be making a change or not.”
But would the district have to change its own school’s name?
“We were informed by NYS that Iroquois is absolutely fine at this point,” says Superintendent Douglas Scofield. “It’ll just be the name chiefs that we use and the Native American figurehead that’s associated with it.”
Scofield tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person he reached out to the Seneca Nation to discuss the matter.
“Our intent is to always respect and honor them that has been a key piece here in Iroquois and we’re hoping to hear back from them so we can enter a dialogue,” he says. “We haven’t heard back from them, but we respect that decision on their part.”
7 News reached out to Seneca Nation for comment.
No one couldn’t be reached.
But Superintendent Scofield says his district will be ready for any ruling by the state.
"I would use a collaborative process. Working with students and presenting it to the board in July in our district planning conference,” Scofield says. “And next year we’ll go through a process to select what we could become.”
Until then, Scofield hopes the transition will go smoothly if they have to change.
“I just really appreciate the Iroquois community because even though we love who we are, we like to remain that,” he says. “But we also understand times have changed and want to be respectful of everyone.”
The Iroquois school district will have to vote on the new name and logo by the end of this school year and the complete change of the logo would have to be done by June 30th, 2025.
If they don't follow the state's regulations.
They'll lose funding from the State Education Department, and the superintendent will lose his job.
