Morris High School holds off on mascot vote to re-evaluate options

The Morris Community High School Board held off on a decision to change the school’s mascot Monday night, deciding that a better plan would be to come up with a mascot and logo the public can see.

Board member Chris Danek started the mascot discussion by laying out the facts that come from nearly two years worth of public meetings.

“Number one, I can tell you that there isn’t a single person on this board, in the school or teacher administrator that wants to change the name,” Danek said. “If we were the Morris Rams, this would have never come up. This is something that’s happening outside of our walls.”

Danek said this is not something that Superintendent Craig Ortiz masterminded, as has been accused on Facebook pages. The process to change the name started long before Ortiz was an administrator with the district.

“Unfortunately, he’s the one that actually receives all the letters and threats that we get from people,” Danek said.

Danek said there have been threats of lawsuits against the school because of the name, and the district would have to pay to fight those lawsuits if it doesn’t change the name soon.

Danek said there also is a case of a student who wouldn’t be recognized for their accomplishments due to the school’s mascot. The mascot disallowed them from receiving their accolades.

“That means we didn’t do our job as far as that student being able to do what they need to do,” Danek said. “We actually held them back.”

There is also a bill introduced in Springfield that would restrict Morris from participating in the state playoffs in both sports and academic competitions, he said.

Illinois House Bill 4783 would require schools to get permission from a tribe within 500 miles to use a native mascot and also offer a course on “Native American contributions to society.”

Ortiz also added later in the meeting that the district is under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights, and there’s a very real chance that keeping the mascot further could cost the school federal funding.

The school board was asked to speed up the timeline on changing the mascot but instead stuck to the original plan of being rid of the former mascot by January 2025.

“Our attorneys said it’s really up to them to decide how aggressively they want to pursue Morris High School,” Ortiz said. “They may want to make an example of the school. They may not. They may move slowly on it. As a board, you may be done with this by the time I hear back.”

Ortiz said the worst-case scenario is they come back and say the change needs to be made immediately, and the school says that’s not possible because it can’t immediately change uniforms.

“A lot of the steps we’ve taken so far have bought time, taking down signage and addressing the gym floor.” Ortiz said. “The fear was that you’re going to go backward and say forget it, we’re keeping it, which would lead them to move faster. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer to this question because they’ve been quiet.”

Kara Goff, who serves on the referendum committee to help Morris Community High School either build a new school or remodel the current one, said she’s concerned that changing the mascot to something like the RiverHawks or Mustangs would cost support for the referendum.

Goff said the current junior class was told it would graduate under the current mascot and the board said as recently as its Sept. 11 meeting that it would stick to the timeline. She asked the board to keep to the original timeline as voted on in January 2022 and consider the previous idea of letting the school be known as Morris, and only Morris, until things cool down.

“We’re trying to unite people to move forward for passing the referendum and the mascot decision is going to affect the more important picture here,” Goff said.

Volunteer parent organizations already are planning to celebrate the final year of the mascot with spirit wear and other fundraising items., she said.

Board member Mike Wright said as it stands, the RiverHawks, Mustangs and any other possible name do not have the public support needed for a change to make sense, and fellow Board member Todd Mettille said it would be helpful to come up with a logo for people to see.

Morris soccer coach David Valdivia has been coaching at the school for 12 years, and he’s an alumnus. He said he understands better than anyone the pride behind the mascot, and he wants to embrace it. While that’s true, he also understands both sides of the arguments.

He said the mascot situation has caused confusion among the kids, and while some kids are fine with using it, others hear it and point out that it’s racist.

“There’s a big confusion of our identity in our school, and we need to understand that it’s affecting our kids,” Valdivia said. “I feel like we need to do something because it’s about them. Whether we keep the name or don’t, we need to figure this out because it’s really affecting our kids.”

Valdivia said as far as a new mascot goes, he likes the idea of Red Wolves, which was brought to the board by Bev Perry, who served on the committee when the school was still deciding whether or not to keep the mascot.

Since the topic of the mascot was not on the agenda as an action item, no action had to be taken. There will be further discussion on the mascot at later dates as more concrete concepts around a mascot come together.