When will town officials, education officials, and faculty, staff and students at Skowhegan Area High School stand up to the 11 or 12 members of the school board who do more thinking backwards than forwards, surrounded by a small but volatile group of residents who threaten and mock the very people they are said to be “honoring?” In the latest sorrowful episode, detailed in a recent BDN account, two “Save the Mascot” proponents, SAD 54 school board member Jennifer Pelotte Poirier and baseball … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2015
On Indian mascots, Maine’s top school officials get failing grade
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News Maine could be the first state in the U.S. to eradicate school use of Native American nicknames and mascots. But our effort to make that a reality has encountered two obstacles: 1. Maine’s four tribes have, in writing, asked Skowhegan Area High School, the sole school in the entire state employing a Native American nickname and mascot to, respectfully, please end its use of the name. The school board has refused. 2. Maine’s highest education … [Read more...]