Barnstable High School Students To Decide New Red Hawks Logo

BARNSTABLE, MA — The Barnstable School Committee on Wednesday approved spending $120,000 for new athletic uniforms for the high school, but the committee held off on finalizing a new Red Hawks logo to give students the opportunity to decide.

The new Barnstable High School sports mascot and logo were changed in March. They replace the Red Raiders name and mascot.

Native Americans and activists had long considered, the high school's former mascot an offensive name and logo. Activists and students at a June 2020 school committee meeting called for school officials to disown the mascot, which has also been a target of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

And now those students, will get to choose from three designs for the new logo, via an electronic survey in September

"This is a huge decision," said School Committee member Barbara Dunn, who chairs a subcommittee that's working with the high school's art department to make a new logo. "We don't want to rush it. The subcommittee was very supportive of wanting the students to have a voice in that."

Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown said the new uniforms won't have the new logo — at least for the fall athletic season — to give students a chance to make a decision. Instead, they'll just have lettering.

"The timeline for the logo is less urgent than it was last month," Mayo-Brown said. "Now we have the luxury of a bit more time. It be great for student and staff morale to have a logo, but we don't have to rush and can solicit additional feedback from students."

After students vote on a design, the winning logo will undergo final tweaks to optimize its print reproduction value. It's expected to be unveiled at the school committee meeting on Oct. 7.