Survey Seeks Input on New Taconic High Nickname
PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The PIttsfield Public Schools are seeking input from the community about a new nickname and mascot for Taconic High School.
In August 2020, the Pittsfield School Committee voted to retire its “Braves” nickname. The district decided to enlist the services of Shutesbury’s Heard Strategy & Storytelling, a marketing and communications services agency, who offered pro bono rebranding services to any Massachusetts high school who made the decision to change their mascot. To date five schools, including Taconic, have taken the offer.
“We’re thrilled to begin the important work of making our school and our mascot representative of everyone in the district,” TaconicPrincipal Matthew Bishop said. “We’re excited to see what ideas the community has during the open survey portion of the process.”
Working with members of the Taconic High School Mascot Subcommittee, Heard recently helped engineer a strategy of compiling community input for a period of time, with the goal of distilling that data into actionable items so the subcommittee can make further decisions and recommendations.
The online public survey opens Wednesday, Oct. 7, and will remain open for two weeks. The survey can be accessed via the link on the Pittsfield Public Schools website www.pittfield.net or here.
Following the collection of responses received from the survey, the subcommittee will begin narrowing the choices to a smaller list of finalists in anticipation of presenting them to the student body and School Committee for an eventual vote.
The rebranding process will take several months to complete. Starting with the community survey, school officials are hopeful to have a new mascot unveiled by the end of 2021. Students, alumni, and Pittsfield community members are encouraged to participate in the survey in an effort to reach the goal of establishing a new name and mascot that is relevant and relatable to both current students and alumni, as well as portray a positive, uplifting image.