The William S. Union High School District Board of Trustees voted during their Wednesday evening meeting to delay their final decision on the Hart High School Indians mascot until July.
During the Wednesday evening meeting, District officials decided to vote on the controversial Hart High School Indians mascot on July 14, according to officials.
The Hart District board had considered having Hart High School’s Associated Student Body (ASB) vote on whether they would keep the mascot.
However, several speakers from the community urged board members to take action and to not leave it up to the Hart High School student body to make the decision to change the mascot.
Julia Estrada, a graduate of Hart High School of Native American descent, was one of the community members who opposed the notion of having the school’s ASB vote on whether to remove the mascot.
She expressed that Hart High School students were not educated enough on the topic to make the decision.
“I have been patient and I have been polite, but what more will it take for you to listen to native voices and accept the harmful impact of Hart’s racist Indian mascot,” Estrada said. “People are not mascots. Do the right thing, and change it.”
See Related: Hart High School Students Call For Retiring Of ‘Outdated’ Indian Mascot
Hart District board member Joe Messina advocated for keeping the mascot because a Hart High School survey showed a majority of students and staff wanted the mascot to stay the same.
“We are a representative government, and we were originally saying we’d allow the community to decide what they wanted to do,” Messina said.
The board member said he hoped to make the push to change the mascot a learning moment.
While he supports keeping the mascot, Messina said he would like to see Hart High School students become more educated about Native American culture, in part through school visits from the local Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.
“We run away from this stuff or think by wiping it out it will fix everything,” Messina said. “Why not educate the kids, bring the tribe in and teach the kids about this… instead of wiping it out and running away.”
Back in April, Hart High School Principal Jason d’Autremont revealed the results of a survey done in March during a regular governing Hart District board meeting, revealing that a majority of both Hart students and staff support keeping the current Indians mascot, despite a recent push from the community due to concerns of racial insensitivity.
“A concern has been shared by community members regarding the propriety of the Hart Indian mascot,” said Mike Kuhlman, superintendent of the Hart District in a previous KHTS article. “Our board has taken a proactive and thoughtful approach to gather input from the community.”
See Related: Recent Hart High School Survey Reveals Majority Support For Keeping Indians Mascot
According to a staff survey done March 2, d’Autremont revealed that out of the total staff of 180 people, 128 staff members were surveyed. Of that, 61 staff members, or approximately 50 percent, voted to keep the controversial mascot. Another 47 staff members, 38 percent, voted to change it and another 15 members, 12 percent, had no preference.
D’Autremont also revealed that in a student survey completed March 12, 49 percent of William S. Hart High School students voted to keep the mascot, 26 percent voted to change it and 25 percent had no preference.
This study was done with 1,343 Hart students out of the total 2,100, or 64 percent of the school’s student population.
In other efforts to combat the controversial situation, officials at the Hart District have scheduled a board study session to learn about the history of the mascot to address the concerns that have been expressed by the community.
To view the full board meeting, click here.
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