Good morning,
HB 1237 has received another amendment (HA 3), and is posted for the House Education Policy committee this morning at 8:00am. The amendment does a number of the things that we have advocated for including:
Clearly defining which mascots would be banned to eliminate any confusion;
Allowing districts one year to choose a new mascot as opposed to immediately upon bill passage;
Allowing the continued use of existing uniforms, etc through 2030 to allow for those to be phased out in the normal cycle;
Allowing permanent structures with the banned logos to remain until the regular maintenance schedule would require updating
These concessions have addressed the financial and timeline concerns brought forward, but do not address the issue of local control that has been argued in opposition of the bill. In that light, we have also advocated for the allowance of schools with the “banned” mascots to develop a partnership with a federally recognized tribe and receive that tribe’s consent to continued use of the mascot and logo, provided it is not of a derogatory nature. The bill sponsor and his constituent group have been unwilling to negotiate on that point and the current amendment does not reflect that allowance. For districts that have a mascot that is the actual name of a federally recognized tribe, or the name of a historical Native American person, those districts would be given an allowance to receive consent from the tribe that bears the name or from which the historical figure was a member. All other districts would not have this option and would need to retire their mascot by July 1, 2026.
If the most recent version of this bill is something that you would oppose, you can file a witness slip at this link.
I would also strongly recommend you reach out to your Representative as soon as possible to let them know if you oppose this bill in case the bill gets called for a vote on the House floor before the third reading deadline, which is this Friday.
Thank you,
Chad Jones
Superintendent