Another Kansas City area school retires Native American mascot. Here’s the new name
A Kansas City, Kansas, middle school is retiring its Apaches mascot, which critics have said is culturally insensitive.
On Tuesday, the school board approved Arrowhead Middle School’s new mascot: the Wolves.
The school district last fall began reviewing school mascots to ensure they are not racially or culturally offensive, spokesman Edwin Birch previously said. Officials appointed a renaming committee, which decided to first focus on changing the Arrowhead Middle School mascot.
District officials highlighted that the Apache tribe was not from the Kansas City region, and that the mascot could be considered racist and degrading to Native Americans.
The school already had phased out imagery of the mascot, but had not officially changed it. Earlier in May, the committee recommended changing the mascot to the Wolves — the name that received the most votes from students and others — and then gathered more community feedback. The school board on Tuesday unanimously approved the change.
The board also voted to change the name of the Fairfax Learning Center to the Alfred Fairfax Academy, named after Kansas’ first Black state legislator. The campus was originally named for its location in KCK’s Fairfax area and the history of the Fairfax Industrial District. Officials said they wanted to give the school a new identity as it expands.
“This was a request from the community that came out a couple of years ago. So it was great to see that the community really provided input that was needed for us to make these changes to these two schools to make recommendations that would represent our community,” former school board member Stacy Yeager, who sat on the renaming committee, said at a board meeting last month.
Several school districts, universities and professional sports teams across the country are reviewing and changing Native American mascots. Research has shown that the use of such mascots can increase suicidal thoughts and depression among Indigenous people, and diminishes teens’ self-esteem and community worth.
Washington’s NFL team, for example, dropped its offensive name to become the Washington Commanders.
Last school year, the Shawnee Mission school board unanimously agreed that Shawnee Mission North High School and three district elementary schools must remove their “Indians” and “Braves” mascots. Thousands of residents petitioned for the change, arguing that the Native American mascots are racist and degrading.
Last May, Shawnee Mission North announced it would change its mascot from the Indians to the Bison. In addition, three elementary schools in the district changed their mascots to become the Belinder Bears, Rushton Red-Tailed Hawks and Shawanoe Bison.
