By Gordon Dritschilo
THE RUTLAND HERALD
The argument over the Rutland High School mascot seemed far from over Tuesday, but it did appear to have shifted.
City School Commissioners seemed to agree during an ad-hoc committee meeting called to discuss Act 152, the state’s new law on avoiding offensive mascots, that the days of the Rutland Raiders were at an end. Those board members who had defended the “Raider” name, though, spent much of the meeting in opposition to adopting the “Ravens” nickname selected by students in an administration-overseen process.
“It’s like flipping the bird to the majority of the students and the taxpaying citizens,” Commissioner Tricia O’Connor said. “We need to put the bird in the cooking pot and be done with the bird.”
The board voted to retire the name “Raiders” in 2020 in response to complaints that it played off negative stereotypes of Native Americans — the name was shortened from “Red Raiders” and a Native American chief logo had been abandoned many years earlier, but the connection was kept alive by the retention of an arrowhead logo. Ravens was chosen as the replacement — in a process critics claim was “rigged” or “skewed” to exclude the already-rejected Raider name — and adopted by the board in early 2021.
However, public backlash to the change saw the election of a slate of school board candidates who campaigned on restoring the Raider name. Almost a year of fighting among board members followed before the board voted in January to do just that.
However, an attempt to elect another slate of pro-Raider candidates in March largely fell flat, and in June Gov. Phil Scott signed Act 152, which effectively prohibited mascots that “directly or indirectly references or stereotypes the likeness, features, symbols, traditions or other characteristics that are specific to the race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity of any person or group or persons or organizations associated with the repression of others.”
The meeting Tuesday was ostensibly to discuss how the board should implement the law. School districts and supervisory unions across the state have until Jan. 1 to either adopt a model policy provided by the Agency of Education, or draft their own more stringent policy. Commissioners on Tuesday appeared to be in favor of doing the former.
The high degree of contention continuing to surround the issue was made clear at the beginning of the meeting, when O’Connor and another pro-Raider commissioner, Karen Bossi, argued that School Board Chair Alison Notte should recuse herself.
O’Connor argued that because Notte’s husband, Rep. William Notte, D-Rutland City, had introduced a different bill on the subject, it was “close to home” for the chairwoman and told Notte she should recuse herself because the bill was “near and dear in your household.” Notte replied that there was no conflict and that her husband’s bill had died in the House and was unrelated to the Senate bill the governor signed.
“I think it’s probably near and dear in your household because you campaigned on the mascot, as well,” Notte told O’Connor.
Bossi tried to make a motion to require Notte to recuse herself, but recusal is at the discretion of individual board members. Bossi claimed there was precedent for forcing a recusal but when pressed by Notte, Bossi could only cite that she had not been allowed to sit on the board’s committee for negotiating contracts because she has a daughter working in the school system. Notte pointed out that committee assignment are at the board chair’s discretion.
Once the actual discussion was underway Bossi said it seemed for her the best move was to abandon any mascot, and simply have the school branded as Rutland with an “R” as its symbol. O’Connor backed this position, calling it a compromise, but others on the board argued for, if not keeping the Ravens, giving the students another chance to choose a mascot. Commissioner Sara Atkins Doenges said just using an “R” as the school’s symbol was “giving up.”
“That’s letting our children down,” she said.
Bossi countered that anyone might find anything the board comes up with offensive, saying she had her own issues with “Ravens.” Commissioner Marybeth Lennox-Levins countered that more than 1,000 colleges in the NCAA managed to find inoffensive mascots, so it seemed like Rutland City Public Schools ought to be able to, as well.
Commissioner Charlene Seward claimed few students cared what the mascot was and that the board had a number of more serious issues to discuss. She argued going with the “no-mascot” option would let the board move on and perhaps a future board could take up the question of a new one once the temperature had cooled.
The discussion also touched on whether choosing the new name should be thrown back to the administration, what level of involvement the board should have in setting the process and how opinions from the public at large should be solicited. The meeting ended shortly after the two hour mark.
“We’ve decided the Raiders need to go,” Stephanie Stoodley, a pro-Raider commissioner, said. “That’s the only thing we’re going to accomplish tonight.”
gordon.dritschilo @rutlandherald.com
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