Avon’s Name, Imagery and Mascot Stakeholder Committee will recommend to the Board of Education that “River Hawks” replace “Braves” as the district’s new mascot.
“This recommendation is the result of a tremendous amount of hard work from a lot of dedicated people,” said Dr. James Colt, one of the committee’s co-facilitators. “I’m proud of the work of our committee members and feel this recommendation sets our district up for a bright future and, at the same time, centers the voices of our district’s most important stakeholders - our students.”
The forthcoming recommendation to the Board of Education follows a Friday, Jan. 12 vote of students and staff on three final mascot options: River Hawks, Archers and Novas. In all, 632 votes were cast - 127 from staff and 505 from students.
River Hawks was the clear favorite, garnering 406 votes, good for 64 percent of the total vote. The Archers came second with 162 votes or about 26 percent and the Novas were a distant third with just 64 votes, or 10 percent.
River Hawks was also far and away the most popular option within each cohort, accounting for 74 percent of staff votes and 62 percent of student votes.
“We’ve strived to be collaborative throughout this entire process,” added Tim Hayes, the committee’s other co-facilitator. “The ‘River Hawks’ name was first suggested to us during our outreach process, so while the Braves nickname has done Avon well over the past 70-plus years, I’m excited at the prospect of watching Avon students continue to succeed - whether on the athletic field or in the classroom - under the new, River Hawks name. As a friend commented during the process, ‘We will have a new beginning with a beloved history.’”
The stakeholder committee will make its official recommendation to the Board of Education at its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, Jan. 22.
The Board of Education will have final say on whether to adopt the River Hawks name in accordance with the terms of the New York State Education Department’s November 2022 memorandum prohibiting the use of indigenous names, mascots and logos by public school districts.
Avon’s Board is slated to consider the matter at its Jan. 22 meeting and could approve the new mascot at that same meeting.
Assuming the Board of Education adopts the committee’s recommendation, it will be the further recommendation of the Stakeholder Committee that members of the district’s leadership team continue to work with Vaysen Studio to develop imagery options to accompany the River Hawks name for recommendation to the Board of Education by the start of the 2024-2025 school year.
As with the mascot re-naming process, this imagery ideation and selection process will feature robust student and staff participation.
The pie chart above shows the results of a Jan. 12 vote on three new mascot options. Avon staff and students in grades 5 through 12 participated in the vote, which saw River Hawks garner about 64 percent of the total vote.
River Hawks was also far and away the most popular mascot option within each voting cohort. As shown in the bar graphs above, River Hawks accounted for 74 percent of staff votes and 62 percent of student votes.