Posted on 04/19/2022 10:50:41 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Azusa High’s mascot has been Aztecs since the school opened in 1956. At Tuesday’s Azusa Unified School District meeting, the board will decide if it stays that way.
Gladstone High in Covina, one of the district’s two high schools, will become a middle school for the 2023-24 school year as part of a massive district reorganization, with students who would have attended Gladstone High blending into rival Azusa High.
The question is, will Azusa High be rebranded with a new mascot the way West Covina and Charter Oak high schools were in the 1980s when respective rivals Edgewood and Royal Oak merged with them? That’s the topic on Tuesday’s agenda.
A previous board of education vote was taken on this with a unanimous approval to change the name of the mascot. However, that decision is being revisited.
Bound to come up Tuesday is the notion that the mascot should be changed because mascots related to indigenous peoples are being changed at all levels of sports.
At the highest level, Washington’s NFL team went from a name many considered a slur against Native Americans to the Washington Football Team to the Washington Commanders. Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians are now the Cleveland Guardians. And San Diego State in May 2021 passed a university senate resolution urging the school to change from Aztecs. That is slated to be consummated soon, according to KGTV San Diego.
The football and soccer field at Azusa High was re-done in 2020-21. If there is a rebranding, it could cost the district between $100,000 to $150,000 to redo it.(Photo courtesy of Azusa Unified School District)
The meeting is set to begin at 7 p.m. inside the administration office of the school district. It can also be livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel.
District Superintendent Arturo Ortega knows it’s an emotional time for students and alumni of both high schools.
“One thousand percent,” he said.
Discussions about the reorganization began in the fall of 2020, with the board voting 5-0 to approve it this past December. Along the way, Ortega has absorbed a lot of information over many meetings.
“I really, really believe that we have been fortunate to have a large amount of kids, staff, community members, alumni come to the board meetings and express their views, express their opinions, send emails,” he said.
He said having that much input “gives us a front-row view to better understand where different people are coming from and what they’re thinking and what their thoughts are around these things.”
It’s been a lot to take in, Ortega said.
“As you can imagine, we have had an array of that, right, to speak to those emotions,” he said. “Some are in favor, some are against. And some are in the middle, and so I have been very fortunate to be able to listen and to hear and to learn.”
He gets the enormity of the situation.
“Yes, I completely understand the awesomeness of this decision,” Ortega said. “It’s very, very difficult.”
There are two main reasons for the reorganization that will have three middle schools close, with Gladstone becoming the only middle school in the district; two elementary schools are also closing. First, the district wants to get all it can out of its resources. Also, enrollment has declined over the years.
Azusa High in 2003-04 had an enrollment of 1,458 students. For this 2021-22 school year, it’s 1,035. Gladstone High in 2003-04 had an enrollment of 1,583. For 2021-22, it’s down to 981.
The reorganization could save the district as much as $5 million “over the course of the first couple of years,” Ortega said.
He said the biggest cost for rebranding would come with the athletic field at Azusa High, which was fairly recently renovated.
“If the mascot is changed, then a portion of the field would have to be re-done,” Ortega said. “That right there is somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000.”
New athletic uniforms and band uniforms would also come at a cost, Ortega said. But he also noted that there are several other things the district was hopeful of doing with or without rebranding.
“Regardless of the mascot or not, we were already going to recommend to the board of education that we re-paint the school,” Ortega said. “So, yes, rebranding would cause us to have to repaint. But … again, we’re thinking of a high school, thinking of this awesome place not only totally awesome in programs, but also awesome on facilities.”
Rebranding would also mean a new marquee. Again, that was something already being recommended to the board, Ortega said, regardless of any potential rebranding. The same can be said for the floor in the gymnasium, he said.
Azusa Mayor Robert Gonzales attended Gladstone High, City Councilman Jesse Avila went to Azusa High. Both are quick to note they have nothing whatsoever to do with this decision. But their thoughts on the subject are interesting.
“As a fact, the student-body originally picked that name, mascot and colors in the 1950s,” Gonzales said, of Azusa High. “It has been a symbol for the longest-occupied high school in our city.
“It’s unfortunate a high school has to close due to enrollment. This is a gut-punch to the community for closing Gladstone High School. Why gut-punch twice with a rebranding of Azusa High School?”
Avila graduated from Azusa High in 1989.
“But two of my kids graduated from Gladstone, so I was able to wear both colors,” Avila said. “My heart’s at both schools. Although I bleed the black and blue of the Aztecs, for a while there I was rooting for the Gladiators.”
He does not envy the school board.
“I feel for our counterparts on the school board because this is a lose-lose decision, whichever decision they decide to go with,” he said.
Avila was referring to the emotions involved. He said he understands that it doesn’t seem fair that Gladstone High students suddenly become Aztecs. He also gets that it doesn’t seem fair to Azusa High to lose its mascot. Whichever way it goes, one side is going to be hurt, he said.
But in his mind, spending money when money doesn’t have to be spent, is not the way to go.
“If you’re thinking of saving money, you don’t go through the rebranding,” Avila said.
As for the mascot as it pertains to indigenous peoples, Sandra Gahring, an Azusa High alum who was the school’s softball coach for 15 years and athletic director for nearly three decades, previously noted that there is nothing insulting about the Aztecs mascot.
“That Azusa Aztec has always been a regal figure and it’s never been a caricature,” she said. “It’s never been a joke. It’s a beautiful, beautiful mascot.”
Perhaps, but current Gladstone athletic director Albert Sanchez nevertheless wants the mascot changed.
“If we’re starting new, we start fresh, we start fresh altogether,” he said. “And that’s how you’re going to motivate people. Yeah, maybe at first it won’t come together like people want it to, but it will. It definitely will. Athletically, I think it’s the right thing to do program-wise.”
And here in Aztec N.M. we have the Aztec High school ‘Aztec Tigers’ lol.
I thought Aztec was good to the leftists? I am confused now. I think ingesting too many cannabis gummies and semen has these folks confused. Anti-American Azteca = Good. Someone had that email deleted.
Try Mayans. It must be politically acceptable, we got a TV show by that name!
FINE, then!
They are now the “Azusa GESUNDHEIT!”
Done.
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