August 4, 2020 RTSD Special Board Meeting to Hear Community Input on Radnor Raider Name/Mascot

001i'm going to open the meeting all right welcome everyone i would like to call to order uh everyone to the special board the virtual special board meeting of the radner township school district to hear community input on the radno raider name and mascot and we will begin with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so i'd like to welcome everyone and to report uh that the board has not met in executive session since our last business board meeting and then i'd like to get right underway with our presentation from mr petiti and after our presentation and before we start public comment i'll just give the

002public a little bit of information okay thank you mr petit if you'd like to get underway okay thank you miss turn so welcome everyone joining us tonight those on zoom including our guest commentators school board members and fellow administrators as well as those watching live on youtube we as a district appreciate you all taking the time to tune in to this important discussion so what i'm going to be showing you soon is a seven slide presentation that attempts to capture elements of more than 125 years of random high school history as the district's director of communications i have been a part of just nine years of this history in fact this month in 2011 is when i started in ratner well that means i was here for the retirement of the costume mascot in 2013

003an event including the timeline that you'll soon see and i still remember the circumstance as well there's an incredible amount of history i nor many of us in ratner may not be fully aware of just like there will be any institution founded before the 1900s so we've tried to pin down some concrete information through an examination of archives within the district as well as at the rather memorial library we've spoken to some alumni and have incorporated their recollections into the timeline what we know for a fact is the colors of red and white were established prior to the establishment of the name raiders we knew the name raiders was established without a definitive connection to native americans and we know the raiders maya scott depicting a native american in full dress was developed in the

004mid-1960s during our research the name emerson chief metoxin kept surfacing i will talk more about mr metoxin however is important to state from the start that the connection between mr metoxin and the native american interpretation of raiders beginning in the 1960s is by no means definitive we know mr matoxin was beloved by students based on various articles from the time and we have spoken to a past faculty member who recalls the adoption of native american symbolism in the 60s was in a way inspired by mr matoxin but we have also heard that the costume was chosen simply due to its ease of creation it may have just been a coincidence that mr mctoxin was planning to retire the same year the costume first premiered our goal as a district is to provide an accurate and

005factual report on not just the history of the rad narrators and associate imagery but on the history of the school itself so we encourage any member of the public who has either concrete evidence or historical knowledge of the origins and history of the raider associated imagery or any other related information concerning the topic to email us at ratner rtsd.org so we can continue to flesh out our past for the benefit of our future so now let me start with the presentation at hand please so first as i mentioned in the intro um starting right at the beginning here with i can uh get this to change slides with the founding of the high school in 1893 and what we're trying to accomplish as i mentioned is take a look in a short short order here

006of some materials that is associated with information we uncovered and these are student newspapers predominantly in the lower half of your screen you'll see that we found through the 19 1897 critic which is a student paper that red and white were chosen and used by the student body as early as 1897 and you also see that these red and white were also referred to as crimson and white in some circumstances and then in 1905 again red and white and then when the football song was created in 1924 the team was actually referred to as the red and white and that was incorporated into the song so that helps us establish that red the color red was was a standalone from the raiders itself and we learned through our research that around 1931 in 1934 we

007found our first known usage of the word raiders or red raiders in connection with reiner high school and at the time it seemed that and from from our digging that a lot of newspapers would come up with names themselves for teens they didn't want to or they were adverse to calling the team by the actual educational institution they came up with some sort of moniker to the bulldogs and in this case potentially the raiders um during the time here we weren't able to see anything that connected the raiders name with a native american at this time that's not to say that there wasn't a possible inspiration that we just couldn't uncover it's just that we couldn't locate anything we did also learn that around this time the term dry raiders are very popular due to

008prohibition and it's possible that dry raiders was a motivating or inspirational factor in the establishment of the word raiders that's the name another important thing to note at this time was that no connections to the lehigh land of p tribe um have been discovered i know that that has been some there has been some discussion about a potential connection but in all the research that we've done we can't locate any connection between the raider name and that particular group of native americans excuse me yes native americans uh next we will go into uh mr matoxin as i mentioned and um if you can see that my screen i don't know if if this is blocking it this video feed but summer toxin who was known as chief wasn't actually a chief but he's known as

009chief was hired in 1943 and as you see here i don't need to read it over but he you can see a little bit about his bio here and he was with the district for over 20 years and during that time he played a role in various athletic groups and he also acted as an assistant athletic director i mean he also had relatives that were pretty renowned in the area for their contributions to athletics and you also see that he would appear occasionally in his full headdress as you can see in a picture there on the far right to confer awards and whatnot um so it's important to kind of to give some history of chief patoxin and um just how much of a love and revered he he ended up being in in the

010school district in our high school i should say move on to the next slide having trouble sliding down here you see in 1945 we were looking for connections again to to the native american imagery prior to 1964. and in 1945 we signed a program an lm game that perhaps tellingly shows lm athletes and superimposed on bulldog heads and and then the red raiders with no imagery associated and then you'll also see interestingly in 1951 one of mr mataxin's previous employers glenn nor high school actually named their team the indians ostensibly in honor of mr matoxin and there's an article there from january 16th of 51 that actually describes the process of naming that it was done at least in their mind at the time and not to honor mr matoxin and this was actually when

011he was with ratner so you'll see towards the ending the maybe last paragraph our writers actually mentioned so um there is some potential belief maybe that we were also inspired as others as other schools were 64 is where we really start to see is actually where we see the native american imagery come into play and we see that from the suburban wayne times which published an article talking about how that student body was looking to create an actual physical mascot to represent the raiders and as like as i have a pulled out quote here you can see it highlighted in the same article you'll see that they had a competition or some sort of a vote and at the time they were decided i'm not sure what they were deciding between but we do know

012that in the end they came up with a native american as their as the mascot excuse me go down here so then fall 64 is when you actually would you saw that first appearance of the costume mascot again as i mentioned in the introduction it could have been because of of convenience and ease of costume however the first raider we were able to talk to and they explained that it seemed to be an attempt to to honor or at least bring some sort of respect to the role through education and meetings with mr matoxin so you can read in that highlighted there what the student had reported to us interestingly the middle school then the junior high school also established a student to whose name has been blacked out to um run along the sidelines

013in a native american costume as well that same year mr matoxin retired and the retirement was greeted with much adulation in terms of celebrating the man's work this coverage in the philadelphia inquirer we found there's coverage in local papers it looks like he would he visited some schools to almost a farewell kind of tour to talk about his his history and the tradition of native americans at least as he knows them so we have that set in stone as well when he retired i keep going back to the slide which i'm trying not to do okay now we get into where it gets a little murky and we we don't we know that um around this time after his retirement uh there's been much more imagery surfacing with a masthead um happening at the radnorite

014back in 68 we know that they named raider road and no later than 69 we know that by a photograph from 77 we can see a version of the indian head on the side of the building as well as on the logo for the football helmets which we haven't been able to pinpoint when that was placed there or when that was removed and you'll notice that the logo to the right the close-up is a little bit different looking than the one that we found in the photo so there was also a period of time where that must have been switched out or a new logo was updated and then we couldn't locate when that new sign was put up may 1989 mr toxin passed away and was buried locally and 2016 we know um from

015talking to some people familiar with that time that an opinion piece was then published it could have happened earlier questioning the appropriateness of native american imagery and the raiders and so it's at least 14 years if not more that this conversation has been going on i mentioned again in the introduction about the retirement of the what we'll call the bobble head costume of a narrator we again not certain when that came to be how long that character roamed the sidelines of games but we do know that in june 2013 it received quite a bit of publicity when we decided to retire the costumed raider and that will bring us to now and importantly to to point out uh mr matoxen's united nation in 2013 came out to urge the washington redskins to change their name

016so it's important to put that on record that you know obviously he's not with us any any longer but his his group made a stance on that and then what really brought us to to have this meeting tonight in many ways was the increasing increasingly vocal students through social media they're the student newspaper other venues calling for an examination of the raider and in many cases is for random for reform and the drop drop the chopped facebook page calling for an abandonment of the raider and associate imagery altogether so with that as background i'll stop sharing my screen and if there's no questions or any comments regarding that we can jump into a round of comments thank you mr petiti actually what we are going to do is get right underway with with public comment

017individual board members may or may not have questions about the presentation um you know but we did focus tonight to be an evening for us to listen to the community input so i'd like to get right underway with that and uh before we get started i'd like to thank you mr pettitti and dr hand and uh and mr batchelor for working together to do the the to bring together the technology that allows members of the public to uh join us tonight this is kind of a test run we've been virtual since march and we've not had members of the public be before us live so we hope that this opportunity to hear the public allows us to see how this technology might work for us you know as a board as a district um i'd

018also like to tell you that we have a tremendous amount of public comment tonight we received mike mr petiti approximately 130 written submitted comments by noon yesterday which was the deadline for those who wanted the option to present their comments tonight not all members of the public opted to do that just so the board is aware approximately 35 or 36 participants will be joining us tonight to share their comments in person and then the rest of the comments will be read by mr petitti and ms gangle from our communications department so we have a lot to hear tonight and with that in mind and keeping in mind the the tremendous amount of work that the district's been doing to reopen school which is also on the forefront of all of our minds what i'd like

019to propose is that we're going to listen to public comment until about 11 o'clock let's see how far we go um the we may very well well i may very well recess this meeting tonight and then we would reconvene the meeting at another time and what that means from a technical standpoint for those of you in the public is that we would we don't end the meeting but we would recess it um your comments that you've sent in tonight would be will be saved and if we don't get through the 36 or so people who wanted to have their comments read by themselves we would send them a link for another date at another time correct mr bachel we can do that correct yep we'll continue the meeting wherever we leave off we told everybody

020public comment will be read in the order that it came in or if people want to choose to uh speak they have that option to actually read their comment or mr petiti but yes if we recess this meeting we would just begin where we leave off at the when we reconvene the meeting great and and i would like to say it's really in deference the the even the contemplation of recessing this meeting tonight is really out of consideration for our administration who has been working tremendously hard and going tremendously late into the evening um that does not mean to say this topic isn't important in fact it's so important we want to make sure that everyone is able to hear it you know until a decent hour of the evening um and so we're gonna

021get underway with that and uh and as my mother used to say we will we will play it by ear so we'll you know see how the next couple of hours go unfold with comments so dr hand or mr petit i'm not really sure who's taking over the technology aspect of this tonight um but i will let you get underway sure our first comment if dr han could help me to to bring in mr rick eckstein hello welcome mr x team to uh the school district you are our first commenter uh in person i'm honored john since we've gone virtual so welcome well i don't know what to say about this privilege about being the first uh thanks very much uh my name is rick eckstein i live at 334 strathmore road in garrett hill

022first i'd like to commend the board for giving this issue the attention it deserves especially in these unprecedented times our country's experiencing a unique cultural moment when subtle unintentional forms of racism are being recognized and addressed as a society we are starting to understand that one need not be a racist to legitimate systemic racism i've been embroiled in this issue for over 30 years both professionally and personally as a sociology professor who researches and teaches about sports culture and politics i've given many educational presentations about the problems raised by using native american mascots and nicknames as the parent of two recent rtsd grads i have personally despaired for almost 20 years at the district's use of native imagery and have occasionally and politely shared this despair with previous boards and district administrators i was indirectly

023involved with the 2013 limited rollback of the high school's native imagery which i hope might snowball into more comprehensive changes sadly this did not happen and it leads me to the issue i want to focus on in my remaining time why in addition to ending the use of native imagery in the district's logos the name raiders must also go i didn't always believe this until a month ago i thought it might be possible to rebrand the raiders name into something independent of native imagery what changed my mind was quaker wrote's decision to completely retire the ancient miami caricature and name by the way does anybody believe that anne chamima honors african-american domestic workers anyway quaker oats explained that it simply wouldn't be possible to say aunt jemima without evoking the racist caricature imagery and the

024name were fused and so it is i believe with our use of raiders the nickname will always evoke native imagery even if we don't want it to it is embedded in the district's cultural engrams we saw this in play after the limited 2013 changes yes we eliminated the red from red raiders and disposed of the indian costume but we did it on the qt we didn't really tell anyone so the local media still called us the red raiders the band still led the chop the indian head remained behind the bleachers some middle school coaches innocently ordered warm-up jerseys with native imagery and feathers started sprouting from every district logo the exact same feathers as the former washington football team logo i believe this happened because we did the changes half-heartedly we cut off the dandelion's

025head without getting the root and the root i'm afraid includes the name raiders so i implore the board and district administrators to act boldly with courage and conviction that they're being true to the district's values by immediately ending its use of all native american imagery and the reader's nickname we will survive we are more than a nickname thank you very much thank you mr eckstein mr petiti do you want to bring in the next person yes next we will have miss maya van rossen welcome ms fan awesome [Music] hi sorry about that um hi can you hear and see me yes terrific so hi i'm maya van rossum i am a lifelong radnor resident i am a radnor alumni i played radnor sports and i am in the radnor hall of fame and i am

026here tonight to ask you to please retire the raider name and the native american imagery out of respect for first nation people who are opposed to and harmed by the ongoing and effective use of native american references and imagery by sports teams schools and business and because of its impact on radner students including my own children research documents that use of native american names mascots and imagery support negative stereotypes and harmful perceptions of native americans and other communities of color it harms the development of young native americans it perpetuates ongoing societal and inequities for native americans and it can impact the self-esteem of other non-native communities of color and it teaches non-native children that denigrating treatment of native americans and other communities of color can somehow be deemed accessible acceptable in recent weeks sadly my

027family has witnessed real time within the radnor community how the raider name imagery and their and their lessons of disregard do in fact support stereotyping aggression and bigotry those vigorously in support of ongoing use of the raider name and imagery have put up social media so see the following i'm just going to tell you some of the language is offensive so if you have children please mute your computers they have told us go yourself they have referred to us as the bandwagon main line yes i just can you hear me still we can hear you if you would perhaps just use uh non-expletives we we understood we read your comments and and not just out of respect for our board in the community we we did read them we we are aware of the actual

028expletives but we would ask that you try to perhaps uh initialize them thank you absolutely inappropriate please yeah well some of them can't be initialized and i agree with you it was wholly inappropriate that people would go onto a public platform and say these things about us call us crazies call us a-holes that was my short form of that call us pansies some suggesting that they should head over to my house for a discussion others stating that we're taking your rel your irrelevant ass out of the hall of fame current radner students were accused of lying when stating their support for change with the remark even supported by a former ratner teacher and when asked to consider the perspectives of native american people we heard quote i don't give to shits what an indian thinks

029and a native american chief was called a quote confused individual and his statements were quote ridiculous keeping the raider name and or the native american imagery accepts and validates such aggressive bullying and threatening behavior and will only serve to embrace empower and embolden such perspectives and i'm glad that you are shocked and offended by that terminology used against myself and my family in a on a public platform and i'm sorry that some of you had to hear it tonight but i felt that it was important for people to fully understand what we were subjected to keeping the raider name minus the imagery will not solve the problem quote raider is already understood by many as an aggressive characterization of native american people radnor's history of coupling the name with the native american imagery will inhibit

030inhibit a changed perception advocates have vowed and they will contin that they will continue to fight to keep both the raider name and the imagery including continued use of paraphernalia with the current native american imagery on it and even urge a return to the quote red raider name keeping in place the name will leave open the perpetual opportunity for backsliding which we have already experienced by contrast a clean change of change of name and imagery will allow the community to come together in a positive process for selecting a new name and mascot that supports both inspiration and respect i have attended many public meetings and hearings involving decisions that impact native american people and in every instance there is a deep frustration anger and concern that when native american people speak decision makers and others

031do not listen and continue to make decisions that harm native american interests in order to advance the goals of others the school board needs to show its students that listening matters and respect matters by voting to end the use of the raider name and the native american imagery i thank you for the opportunity to speak and i'm sorry you were offended by the terms that our own community used against us in a public platform i too was offended thank you miss van rossum appreciate that mr petiti do we have our next commenter yes um we now welcome mr adam bloom welcome mr bloom thank you one moment all right uh can you hear me yes we can welcome thank you i'm a proud radnor alum and i will admit i did enjoy playing the tomahawk

032chop music in the marching band during my years at radnor um as i went on through my years at radner something felt off about playing that music um seeing the mascot in 2006 i wrote a ragnaroke op-ed about whether to keep the mascot i interviewed then athletic director and assistant or interim principal skellinger the and high school aged me concluded that we could keep the mascot but spend more time teaching about the lenny unt local people that was then and this is now i've grown up and my education and experience meeting indigenous people has made it all very clear radnor is so much better than this radnor intends to honor native people with its name yet it strengthens a crude stereotype that reduces all native existence to a romanticized westernized image of a warrior that

033is long past i have learned through my college and professional experiences with native people that team names and mascots are damaging to living native people to live your life knowing you are either a gone a part of history or be a cartoon reminiscent of 1950s westerns would be a huge shock to anybody's self-esteem native american youth have one of the highest suicide rates in the entire nation i've learned that reaffirming symbols like the rad narrator are even more damaging for native people from the east who have dealt with european colonists for centuries longer than out west for a second let's just consider the eastern tribes which dealt with european colonization disease forced removal and intermarriage for centuries before the well-known navajo or lakota our highly developed northeast corridor was built on indian land and we've

034done a good job of forgetting that it is lenape land that we live on and lana p land that we have developed into our affluent blue ribbon community and despite being marginalized they are alive and they are resilient last year i actually attended a powwow by the lenny lenape nanticoke tribe in millsboro delaware i assumed before the event that their celebration would be small thankfully i was dead wrong thousands of people were there and it was beautiful their music sounded nothing like the fake indian tomahawk music i played in our marching band their dancing looked nothing like the fake dancing that our smiling indian mascot made as he danced on the track with our cheerleaders and there was no bow and arrow in sight so i ask you rtsd board please do the right thing

035here as one of the top public schools in the country we can honor native people in many ways by featuring them in their authentic stories in our curriculum but cartoonizing their culture to make our football team seem fierce is unforgivable please show your commitment to excellence show your commitment to diversity and show your commitment to the great young people who make up your student body when you look with a critical eye you will see that the tradition is not as deep or strong as you once thought please do the right thing please change the name and please change the mascot thank you mr bloom and mr stern before we go to our next commenter we were initially tried to have a timer available for tonight and something that we just want to use for this

036meeting and for other meetings i think that is available so if if that is available dr hand will activate the timer so just to help our speakers and just help things move along thank you mr batchelor i don't have a clock on the on the zoom screen i'm realizing i can't see my the the clock built into my computer so i appreciate that assistance i just want people to know it could just appear again we're testing this technology so we thought the timer was going to be up from the beginning it hasn't been but it could appear hopefully for one of our next speakers okay great thank you mr petiti our next uh speaker yes we're happy to welcome marley duchovny welcome mr company hi can everyone hear me hello yes we can great thank

037you um i want to start off by just thanking the members of the board for having um this meeting to hear all of our perspectives um my name is marley du covney and i'm a 2015 graduate of radnor um and there are so many things that i am very proud of as an undergrad the exceptional education that i received the incredible teachers and the strength of our community but one thing that i'm not proud of is our our mascot in fact i'm quite ashamed of this um from the dreamcatcher behind the radnor logo on apparel to the native american mascot on the brick wall at football games to the tomahawk chop that i too can admit played as a member of the marching band um it's really not hard to see all of the instances

038of rtsd portraying stereotypes of native americans and um while i do not believe that shame encourages people to change i believe that the opportunity to do better and be better does um and each of you can help rtsd by no longer relying on these harmful racial stereotypes you yourselves can help us live up to our potential to actually be one of the best school districts not only in pennsylvania but in the in the nation and that's not just academically but also very importantly culturally um and as officials who are elected with the goals of bettering the school district i know that this is something that you strive to do through your service to radnor so just to end my comment personally um as a young jewish woman and the grandchild of holocaust survivors i find

039that for better or worse i often view events like this through the lens of my family's experiences and whether stereotypes are in the form of a joke or even a backhanded compliment it all has the same effect to characterize a whole group of people in and that is the challenge of technology yes here she goes thank you well unfortunately hey mr petiti is that uh miss duchovny's connection it must be okay all righty well i i do think that she was probably kind of wrapping up her comments um certainly mr covney uh we received her emailed comments so we could review her the final words that she was saying but thank you um for that mr petite do you want to bring in our next commenter please yes well next year from emily poupolo sorry

040i apologize um do i have a minute to just finish up yes miss pupolo if you could hold on just a moment please go ahead finish just finish up that's fine thank you my internet went out um i believe where i ended was just saying that um the major difference between the stereotypes that i have faced um in my life is that those were from peers or acquaintances um and that i simply cannot imagine those stereotypes being validated by a school district um so this has to change and each of you truly has the power to make that change and to create a school district that um you know and a mascot that truly represent each of our students better um so thank you and i'm so sorry for that technical error thank you miss

041dukhovny miss pupolo poo polo am i saying that um it's pablo but it's fine welcome thank you okay so my comment is as a member of class of 2022 at rhs i can wholeheartedly say that the fact that there is even a question of getting rid of and replacing our current mascot is ridiculous but since that question is there here's my obvious answer yes we absolutely should replace the raider mascot there is a plethora of reasons for this including the fact that the raider is a caricature this caricature coupled with the implications of the name raider present radnor as a school that is uncaring and indifferent to the suffering of native americans that have faced for centuries by keeping this caricature we as a school show that we are ignorant and willing to fight for

042slash continue the kind of stereotypes that dehumanize and demean native americans if we keep this caricature as our mascot we show our support for the kind of prejudice that leads to the justification of violence and genocide it is offensive crude and most of all racist native americans are not raiders and they are not caricatures to cheer at during a football game native americans are human beings that can't be boiled down to one racist perception there is no reason to keep the raider as our mascot but there are many reasons to replace the stereotypical mascot thank you thank you very much mr petiti are we ready with our next commenter yes um cassandra ramirez welcome ms ramirez hello i am cassandra ramirez from the radnor class of 2022. my family is indigenous native american from the

043knowledge people in central america these institutions such as radner which are funded on the basis of colonialism follow sterocentric principles and are built on the land and blood of our people profit and appropriate cultures that are systematically oppressed and suffer from the lack of societal awareness of our own history and culture despite being nationally used as sports mascots it's time for change during my time in radnor i have witnessed experience and brought to the attention of racism microaggressions and profiling of poc minorities this mascot so-called honoring does not res does not respect respect your school in the whitewashed institution of random northern does it respect our native culture which this is a mockery and mockery to our history a mockery to our people radnor is a school where the educational curriculum glorifies the grotesque history

044of america and does not teach the students about racial diversity ratner is a predominantly white school with a native indigenous mascot when the percentage of native americans are less than one percent instead of honoring our culture again it's mockery and providently racist due to the way the school district profits and deals with the cultural nuances and lack of education in the study of native american culture as well as the climate of the student body the time for your change is now thank you i finished my comment thank you ms ramirez okay um thank you next we have ellie davis hello welcome ms davis hi um my name is ellie davis and i am a rising junior at radnor high school and a member of the student group ranner for reform i have attended banner schools

045since kindergarten and i feel lucky to have grown up in such an engaging and wonderful community and ever since i've had the chance in middle school i've participated in banner athletics playing basketball and in high school participating in crew i've been lucky to experience the wonderful sense of pride in radnor after winning a game in the locker room with my teammates and wearing random merchandise and it's because of and not in spite of this radnor pride that i believe we must change our mascot's name and logo one of the biggest misconceptions about our student group ratner for reform is that we are acting out of a hatred for our own community and the reality is just the opposite our desire to change the mascot's name and logo comes from our radnor pride if we actually

046hated radnor we would have never started this movement in the first place but instead we value and care about our community enough to identify and advocate for ways that we can improve as an athlete i want to be able to show my full pride for radnor but our current mascot makes that impossible in the basketball gym the chairs for the sideline bench have the native american head printed on them the score table right now has the phrase red raider next to the same native american head the floor has the ubiquitous feather image i enter the gym with full radnor pride but in that gym i cannot cheer for my own team without cheering for the racist images surrounding me my pride is replaced with shame and embarrassment that my community hasn't been able to move

047past this outdated offensive mascot i know that i'm not the only student who feels unable to show their full radner pride with the current mascot and i believe that if we change the mascot's name and logo to something that we can all be proud of the radnor ruckus will be able to unite like never before i know i will be able to transition to cheering for a new mascot because my pride for radnor goes beyond just the images on the surface of our community my pride for radnor lies in the people the teachers the business owners my fellow classmates and my neighbors not whatever picture is on the side of the gym i know that this insensitive racist image doesn't represent the welcoming community i know and love and i have enough trust enough hope

048and enough pride for my community that i know that together we can move forward with a new mascot that does not undermine our values thank you thank you miss davis mr patitti okay next we have anarchy vent walsh van rossum you might pronounce that correct ms walsh van rossen and we've moved them on but it oh there we go looks like there we go welcome miss walsh band rossum um sorry it was adding me as a panelist um hi so can everyone hear me yes we are we can welcome okay perfect hi my name is annika walsh van rossum and i am a runner alumni athlete alumni class of 2015 and a radnor resident my whole life when marquette university president robert wilde decided to change the mascot a name from warriors to golden eagles

049he stated while i recognize that some people will be disappointed that we are not reinstating the warrior's nickname we cannot teach one principle about respect for human dignity in our classrooms and then fail to act by that same principle when making decisions and in fact he turned down a two million dollar offer to reinstate the warriors mascot and name for marquette in my time at ratner i attended countless anti-bullying campaigns topics like the harms of name calling of assuming about someone's life and making fun of them even a week-long campaign about not using the r word because it was offensive to our mentally challenged students ratner is a community has attempted to teach these principles yet has failed to act by these same principles when you put the radnor raider image back on the high

050school gym when you continue to appropriate native american culture and imagery and name calling but claim it is important to maintain radnor tradition and sadly your students might buy into that flawed and racist logic and amongst the threats brought against my family as you heard earlier an image of 15 year old me was actually posted on an alumni site by another adult in an attempt to shame me and i was dressed for the lm week pep rally i had put two stripes on each of my cheeks i can't confirm for you my intent at the time possibly thought it was football player i black but i would not be surprised if i thought of it as my war paint and we all know to not participate in the lm week and its traditions makes any

051student a social pariah and if at that time a native student or person told me that was wrong offensive harmful i probably would have dismissed them because how could radnor tradition and actions that a whole school and community condone ever be seen as racist radnor had failed me you continue to fail your current students by allowing the radnor raider name and mascot to exist i am pursuing my law degree now at age 23 in hopes of fighting for social change just like i am doing in this moment what if an interviewer finds that photo what of the images i have seen of past and current students with frankly worse face pain and actions than i ever did at 15. you have put us all at risk and you condone racism and bigotry by calling it

052school pride and that is why i've spent weeks reading comments from radnor alumni saying if native americans fought harder they could have named radnor anything they wanted or chanting red red raiders forever you are condoning an outdated belief system for your students in a world that will no longer tolerate it a world that will not tolerate the ignorant mindset of supporting the rad narrator it is time that you not only teach but act on these principles and principles of supporting the radnor raider are uneducated racist and on a base level wrong and are those really the principles we want to be teaching our students now thank you for your time and i hope you guys make the right decision thank you miss walsh van rossum mr petiti our next speaker next up reese hillman hello

053can you hear me yes welcome miss hillman thank you um hello my name is rhys hillman and i'm a rising junior at radnor high school and a member of the student-led group radnor for reform today i want to address a part of our school that i now know must change the name raider at the beginning of this process i was a believer that it is essential to change our mascot's associated native american imagery but not to change the name that with a completely different image associated with the name raider our work would be complete with this new imagery we'd be able to nurture a welcoming and inclusive environment at ratner however through many conversations and reflection i realized that this is not at all the case to reference our open letter we stated that we

054fear that if we keep the name raider our school will forever be associated with the racist stereotypes of our former mascot commonly known as the red rad narrator for one our school color is maroon at sports games the teams are commonly referenced by their colors therefore if we were to keep the name raider we keep the possibility open that we will be referred to as the red raiders at sports games this term is an offensive and clear reference to indigenous people radnor has been called the red raiders numerous times in the media and the best way to eradicate this name is to change the name from reader entirely secondly as i previously stated i worry that even if we abandon our mascot's imagery and keep the name raider the association between the name raider and

055the native american head hanging over prevost field will remain it is a much better strategy to eliminate this association completely through a rebranding of ratner which includes its mascot and its name additionally because of the association that will remain in the minds of those who have lived and rounder township for years between native americans and the term raider keeping the name raider may very well allow for a reintroduction of racist imagery in the future finally and most importantly i was lucky enough to hear from two indigenous women over zoom about the harmful nature of the word raider they explained how the word raider is harmful in and of itself and because it has been associated with the native american imagery in our town and many other schools across the country the name must also go

056taking the image down is not enough the name raider is equally unacceptable thank you for your time thank you miss hillman hey next isabella deputy hello can you hear me yes welcome miss deputy hi thank you um hello my name is isabelle deputy and i'm a rising junior at radnor high school and a member of the student-led group radner for reform i'm here today as are many of my colleagues to speak out against the current radnor mascot i believe that the native american head as i rad new mascot is going against our ideals and is reducing a group of people to animals allow me to explain i would like to mention the comparison to other mascots when someone looks at a mascot they see a physical representation of the spirit of the school other mascots

057are anything from objects to animals such as birds or prey or wildcats when rider uses the native american head as a mascot it reduces an already marginalized group of people to animals it further diminishes the inherent value of a human life and just shows native americans as a gross caricature of their long and complex culture i feel as though this is a small change that we can do at home right here that can make a huge impact on the message that we send out i want to be proud to wear my school's merchandise and not feel as though i'm reducing a group of people to animals every time someone may see it in order to uphold ratner's ideals of integrity and respect for all people we must change our mascot thank you very much for

058your time thank you miss deputy mr petiti yes thank you uh becca zajac uh mr petiti is ms zach there uh mr hand um dr anne excuse me do you see um miss ajak in the queue there she is but she is not coming in right possibly not be in attendance we can come back yes why don't we do that move on to the next speaker and uh we'll come back to ms zajac okay next up then we have nora graves i do not see her in attendance oh no there i'm sorry eleanor thank you hi can you see me welcome miss graves i'm nora graves and i'm a rising junior at radnor high school i see the mascot every day at school in the hall behind the gym on the wall by the tennis

059courts for a school it is no place for hate it's embarrassing and hypocritical when i was on an exchange trip to germany one suggestion was to give a school t-shirt to my host sister unfortunately i couldn't because the shirts radnor cells all include clearly native imagery like feathers our racist dehumanizing mascot is not how i want to represent radner an incredible school to people across the world that's why i'm part of radnor for reform in 1968 the national congress of american indians america's oldest and most representative native group launched a campaign addressing native stereotypes in pop culture they found that quote the intolerance and harm promoted by these indian sports mascots logos or symbols have very real consequences for native people these characters and stereotypes are harmful perpetuate negative stereotypes of america's first peoples and

060contribute to a disregard for the personhood of native peoples end quote other major national indian organizations the national indian education association the american indian movement the american indian mental health association agreed over 30 individual tribes have filed amicus briefs to the supreme court publicly denounced native mascots led efforts to change local mascots or otherwise called for an end to native mascots in all of our research we have found only one native american organization that accepts the use of native mascots but that group the native american guardian association does not require its members to be native american multiple tribes have denounced them for falsely claiming to represent american indians a single often cited washington post poll said that 90 of native americans were not offended by the washington football team name however this poll was small

061scale only about 500 respondents and crucially did not verify that respondents were native american follow-up peer-reviewed research that did verify respondents native status found that the majority of native american tribal members were offended 65 were also offended by the tomahawk chop an embarrassingly common practice at random football games while some may not find native mascots personally offensive this is a minority opinion more telling is the overwhelming number of native groups that have chosen to devote time money and energy to removing these mascots despite other pressing issues in their communities the nanticoke lenny lenape tribe whose ancestors lived in this area says on their website often our children must visit or attend schools where their race is being caricatured on walls shirts jackets and flags our proud tribal names villages heroes and even rituals are turned

062into marketing tools and demeaned having such mascots is no honor it is an insult thank you for your time thank you miss graves it's it appears miss ajax here so we'll go back to her now welcome miss sajak hi thank you good evening i'm becca zajac and i'm a rising senior i just want to start off by saying thank you for listening to every passionate voice speaking tonight i have lived in radnor my whole life and i've been highly involved in the community as a cheerleader in elementary middle and high school i've been cheering on the ride i've been cheering on the raider for years i support our radnor athletes and teams and i enjoy cheering for the community but as i get older and become more aware of the harmful impact this name has

063on native communities my discomfort grows when we go to away games and our team is announced the radner raiders i feel uncomfortable because the other school's mascot is an animal and ours is a derogatory word does not represent the sophistication of radnor nor is it appropriate for a predominantly white school i want to be i want to be able to fully express how proud i am of our sports team but i cannot do so when it requires perpetuating stereotypes against indigenous cultures i want a name and mascot that i can genuinely support as much as i support our teams take this opportunity to rebrand radnor as a whole and change the message our school sends out for the better you're on the school board for a reason you all have a deep connection to radnor

064which motivated you to put in hard work for the students and community you can't make everyone happy but don't let fear get in the way of doing what you know is right the decision is in your hands give me a real reason to be proud thank you thank you miss jack mr petiti who do we have next welcome miss ellen brown hi um i am here tonight with serious concerns about the debate over the raider i'm miranda alumnae from the class of 2017 i am going into my senior year in the schreier honors college at penn state where i have a double major in english and women's gender and sexuality studies during my time at radnor i stood as a bystander to the misuse and racist cultural appropriation of the raider i recall my freshman

065year in high school the lacrosse team made t-shirts that said stay on the reservation while using the raider logo i was disgusted by the shirts but i did not vocalize my concern the shirts were later changed but we had no community reconciliation or education about why that was wrong my senior year i was the drum major of the marching band i led the band in the chop song that is infamous at all radnor football games i enjoyed shopping it was an exciting and fun interactive cheer but now i look back at the action with embarrassment and disgust mimicking the waving of a tomahawk is not okay the tomahawk action is an example of us picking and choosing what we want to take from indigenous people while continuing to ignore their ongoing presence and struggles such

066as significant sexual assault rates extreme poverty abundant food deserts and stripping their land for an oil pipeline want radnor to abolish the raider because i think it enables high school students to misappropriate indigenous cultures in a negative and harmful manner i know there are some people who believe keeping the raider will honor the legacy of a radnor football coach but i implore us to think about the distinction between the individual and the whole community the football coach was one indigenous person his presence and legacy does not justify the cultural appropriation of a whole nation of people and the raider mascot is not the only way to remember a connection to indigenous people we are living in a moment in history and the exigence of this time has forced this community to have a hard conversation

067about race and inequities within our district abolishing the raider is a symbolic step to move radnor towards an institution that is anti-racist a new theory in criminal justice reform called restorative justice calls for making amends to the victim of a crime and addressing their needs abolishing the name and the imagery of the raider will allow us to restore power and dignity to indigenous cultures that we have harmed radnor a small suburban high school in a predominantly white area has the opportunity to make a symbolic gesture towards native american communities the misuse and abolition of the raiders should be taught in our high school curriculum rather than mindlessly and harmfully performed at sporting events without any further engagement or education on native history thank you for your time thank you miss brown next miss natalie duman

068thank you um i'm natalie duman and i'm a rising ninth grader at ratner in preparation for the special board meeting regarding bradner high school's team name and mascot the school board has requested the submission of community comments and opinions as an incoming ninth grader i would like to offer my input in the hope that it may encourage the board to truly recognize the underlying yet prevalent racism which the rander raiders mascot and the tomahawk chop entail the costume mascot an offensive native american caricature was declared retired in june 2013. however supposing this solely eliminated every element of native american stereotypes from our school's culture and tradition is as ridiculous and exceptionally ignorant as claiming that racism in america is a thing of the past this is a problem here and now the words radnor red

069raiders alongside a native american head still remain upon score tables and chairs of school courts a native american caricature is still displayed outside the school building the tomahawk chop which imitates a religious native american ritual is still performed at football games sports teams in the high school which i will soon attend are still often referred to as the red raiders furthermore the predominantly white radnor high school population continues to be known as racially insensitive i cannot be entirely proud to be joining a school community in which this racism is either denied or blindly ignored the board must find the true elimination of stereotypes in the mascot and team name to be of utmost priority even if this means neglecting some nostalgia which alumni have for the raiders if in regard to racial insensitivity a complete

070change of team name and mascot is necessary so be it thank you for the opportunity to submit my input and for considering my stance on this matter thank you so much nick thank you next we have sarah to chow what did you say sasha hi um my name is sarah tasho and i'm a member of class of 2023 at ratner high school um a common argument against removing the rad narrator's mascot is that no one or very few people in our school district are personally offended by it thus its presence is not doing any real harm however this point is invalid it is not so much the very few native american individuals impacted in our school but more so the lesson ratner is teaching to every student by keeping the mascot we are reducing a

071vibrant ethnic group down to a cartoon image that does no justice for who native americans are some may say we are honoring them but i ask what honor is it to have your culture illustrated through inaccurate logos and chants i recall one of my first days at band camp freshman year when an upperclassman told us the tomahawk chop is not racist no matter what anyone tells you it was truly unfortunate to see peers believe this claim and go on to think mocking and others culture was fine to do yet since then i have realized that this message was subconsciously given to most of the students just by being surrounded by the mascot on a regular basis last school year i interviewed co-director cliff matias of redhawk native american arts council which is a non-profit organization

072led by native americans who are dedicated to illustrating their culture through the arts i interviewed matias on radder's mascot and he made multiple key points one of which being the fact that it was not native americans who made these names or even who created the tomahawk chop and sports chance it is hardly an honor to represent an ethnic group that suffer the highest rate of genocide in the world at 90 percent with an invalid portrayal of their culture notice how there are no german sports teams with the jew as their mascot but instead many memorials dedicated to the millions who suffered in the holocaust bradner claims to value respecting diversity yet i would hardly call using outdated and stereotypical imagery of a culture who makes up so little of our community as seeing that claim

073whatsoever the generation of current youth has the most potential to build a better future for this country however instead rainers is sending students into the world with culturally insensitive views when asked what message mattias felt ratna was giving the younger generation by keeping the mascot he stated he was not surprised and that we are following a pattern of predominantly white establishments being racist some have recognized that others have not in his words we are creating a country with uncompassionate views of history instead of one with understanding and respect for the millions who were and continue to be oppressed i strongly believe our school community is way better than keeping a racist and outdated mascot and i hope you can feel the same way please for the sake of a better future for this country as

074a whole i i'm asking you to change the round narrator's mascot thank you thank you very much i think next we have miss griffin mr petiti yes miss ann griffin okay welcome miss griffin thank you so much um so beginning my comment hello everybody my name is ann griffin i'm a rising senior at radnor high school and a member of ratner for reform a student-led organization on july 15 we released our open letter to superintendent bachelor and the board in our letter we address our reasons for pursuing change regarding the native american heads and imagery and the raider name we also clearly outline our recommendations for the district both short term and long term there will be many comments raised in opposition to changing the imagery and name addressed in our letter we encourage everyone

075to read it in particular some may believe that we are trying to erase history by changing the native american imagery and raider name this notion is unequivocally untrue so i would like to use my time to elaborate ratner has a rich and proud history this will never change one of our proposals shared in the open letter is to create a public museum-like space in the lobby new athletic facilities or another appropriate place to house old sports memorabilia like photographs equipment clothing etc that depict our former mascot commonly known as the red ratner raider these pieces could be contextualized by plaque to explain what our old mascot was and why we changed it community members could donate pieces to add to this space we hope that this could be a collaboration with local native groups rhs

076administration and athletic department the student body and the radnor community how we chose to represent ourselves in the past does not have to be how we choose to represent ourselves moving forwards renner can do better and deserve so much better conversations about changing the mascot are not new student leaders of rander for reform have been involved in this issue for years alumni have been involved for years this is not new it is time for ratner to act other members of render for reform will speak to science and data or other aspects of our plan we have been passionately working on this issue for years i understand that this is both the best and the worst time to raise this issue i'm grateful to the administration and the board for all of their work to reopen

077schools but i urge you all to engage in this issue we can deal with reopening schools and the mascot at the same time perhaps it was the downtime that the pandemic provided that will allow us all to understand the complexities and prevalence of racism in our country and community ratner cannot be in no place for hate school and preach tolerance while rallying under a giant native american head tagged raiders brenner can honor its past by changing its future i urge you all to vote for removing the native american imagery and raider name thank you thank you miss griffin now we have ms mcrae jenny mcrae hello welcome my name is janie mcrae and as a rising junior at rhs i have been repeatedly exposed to the mascot during my time in ratner despite previous efforts

078to eliminate the native american mascot at the high school the imagery is still impossible to avoid walking the halls of the high school there are constant references to the raiders images of the feather headdress and depictions of the native american head as a little kid i thought nothing of this being regularly exposed to the mascot desensitized me to the issue and it was not until i took the time to consider what the mascot represented that i came to the realization that it was harmful not only is the mascot perpetrating a harmful stereotype the very characterization of an entire race is inherently wrong most schools are represented by animals and their mascots are the panthers bulldogs bears by calling ourselves the raiders and taking an entire race as our mascot we are devaluing native american lives

079and treating them as tokens and characters rather than as people a point that i often hear brought up by those defending the mascot is that in the 1960s a native american man named emerson matoxin coached at radnor and did not oppose the usage of a native american mascot although coach matoxen in his time working at radnor never expressed discontent or offense towards the native american mascot we must take this with a grain of salt matoxin was a single native american man living in a predominantly white community and coaching during a time in which the usage of a native american mascot was not widely debated or considered to be wrong his silence and lack of effort to change the mascot cannot be interpreted as complicity even so it is imperative to prioritize the widespread feelings of

080native american people today over the opinion of one individual man who coached at ratner over 50 years ago today the lenie lenape tribe situated at a close proximity to radnor have spoken up about the dehumanizing and degrading effects of native american mascots stating that even though some are said to be in an effort to honor our people most are insulting and racist and all reinforce insensitivity and stereotypes it is easy to sit back and allow the dated opinion of one individual to defend the raider but it is cruel to ignore the voices of the native american people who feel that their culture is being appropriated and mocked by our mascot for a school that prides itself on being no place for hate it is truly shocking that radner remains a perpetrator of such a racist

081dehumanizing and hateful mascot thank you ms mcrae so now welcome mr carl rosen hi welcome mr rosen it's tough following those kids boy they're awfully good um frozen i just i i want to correct uh something i've been i've been neglecting to do tonight uh our first commenters were adults and happened to mention their address and then we were followed by a number of radner students and they identified themselves as students so i was inferring that they are residents if you wouldn't mind just stating your address and i'm gonna try to be better that's one thing that's fallen by the wayside and my apologies to everyone um since we've gone zoom that's that's definitely on me so if you could just quickly state your address happy to do it uh carl rosen 335 over hill

082road and wayne uh good evening and thank you to the members of the school board mr batchelor and my fellow members of the ratner community i'm a 22-year resident of the district 21-year teacher at radnor high school and parent of two rad undergrads so i want to focus on three positives i acknowledge that some who want to keep the native american mascot expect to resent it's being taken away and to regret having lost it and i ask that those fellow radnorites see opportunities instead so number one we still have so much we can afford to be generous and charitable the best thing that we have is radnor in radnor the mascot is not what binds us as a community it is the radnor and the people who make up this community today's students share the

083radnor identity with the class of 2007 which i believe was adam bloom's class 1967 even 1897. number two current students will be able to establish new traditions we can be entrepreneurial big fans of that there are opportunities in imagery and song refrains for the ruckus products to sell and where when ultimate frisbee started as a club we called ourselves the griffins got a little visual aid here someone brought a little griffin statue about this big and we bonded around the pre-game ritual that we created some people fear losing the so-called chop every member of this community can imagine beyond that and number three we have an opportunity to build a more accurate understanding and deeper appreciation for the cultures that are native to this region removing native imagery from our team names does not erase

084history unless we react only in unimaginative ways instead we can improve our precision we can be proud of how much we know and teach as others have mentioned to raid means to move into territory that is not mine to take things this evokes intimidation and fear and because i'm being positive i have to acknowledge that it works as a sports nickname i don't love it i prefer other nicknames and i agree though that it works on that level it is however hard to reconcile a positive sense of raiding with presenting the ideal raiders native american anyone must admit that native raids were in response to white europeans having intruded into what indigenous people had known to be their settlement since before memory it takes blind cherry-picking to stereotype native people as the raiders it may

085be true that a majority of current radnor residents don't object to the current imagery that being said acting ethically is not necessarily about doing what's popular local opinion matters but it isn't all that matters there are plenty of historical reasons why this township is not populated by more members of the lenape tribe and they don't include we preferred oklahoma changing sports imagery is one gesture among many as we continually reassess actions and understandings we can do multiple things to address racial disparities in conflict it would be insufficient to honor john lewis by changing the name of that selma bridge and then doing nothing to correct ongoing racial inequities removing native american imagery from our teams and improving our curricula on indigenous culture and working toward racial equity for our students are all among the things

086that should matter i am positive that we can do this thank you mr rosen next we welcome estelle atkinson and miss atkinson i'm gonna as i said i'm going to ask if you could just say your address quickly thank you awesome okay my address is tenhyvie drive and hello everybody my name is estelle atkinson and i am a graduated member of the class of 2020 and a random student since kindergarten i was a member of the band and as such have been directed to perform the tomahawk shop countless times and i'm the recently retired editor of the random right where i saw some of our most important pieces ever being published on the subject of the rad narrator although the physical round narrator mascot was retired years ago raider imagery is insidious in our school

087environment i can remember seeing the brand new raider head being installed on the side of the school a couple years ago and being confused because i thought that we had moved past that phase of our history i can remember in gym class seeing coaching chairs on the sidelines that still read red raiders because no one thought to retire them depictions of native america did miss atkinson perhaps drop off looks like she might have okay we can invite her back yep let's invite her back okay then next is izzy low miss izzy low hello welcome is low miss lower you are you're a student at radner high school correct i am a student okay great go ahead and continue that's fine hi uh my name is izzy lowe and i am a rising junior at radnor

088high school i am an active member of the group brad nerf reform and i believe that we must get rid of the raider mascot in order to be respectful to all the students and families in our community i have never liked bradford's astronaut even when i was little i did not see the appeal of having a native american figurehead as the face of our school at that time i didn't know anything about civil rights or social justice but i felt uneasy knowing that we had a human face as our mascot while other schools had animals or magical creatures as i learned more about native american experiences particularly their struggles in our country my discomfort grew how did their image be our mascot without recognizing the impact of white people's sediment on their traditional lands as

089a biracial person of asian descent i see stereotypes of asians in pop culture which make me feel other as though i don't belong in this country luckily these stereotypes are infrequent uh native americans native americans however are exposed to harmful cultural stereotypes on a daily basis through school mascots sports teams influential media and popular brands these images suggest that they don't belong that they are other and yet they are the original people of this land how can we be honoring native americans through our mascots when these stereotypes isolate and minimize their experience this paired with multiple psychological studies and personal accounts many shared by radical reform reveals that native american mascots are harmful we should not need a and local to confirm this the evidence it has provided to you should be enough most native

090americans have been traumatized by these stereotypes from a young age by asking any one of them to speak out about this matter in front of an audience you should re-traumatize them and contribute to their history of suffering i do not stress enough given the negative comments by some who wish to keep them by requesting someone to speak on behalf of all natives you are perpetuating stereotypes and failing to recognize the fact that native americans are diverse and unique by requesting that a student speak about their personal struggles with the native american identity you are violating their privacy and overlooking the fact they are still a minor by seeking anecdotal proof instead of studies and public records that we have provided with you you are neglecting to see that this isn't a local problem but a

091national a cultural one and one that only those who created troubling imagery and stereotypes first place should fit we need to get rid of the rad narrator it is all of us who need to make this change not because the natives and our community want us to but because it is the right thing to do and the right time to do so thank you for considering this important job thank you ms lowe and we're going to welcome back we're going to welcome back miss atkinson i it it appears right mr petiti yes sorry about that we had a brief power cut and so my internet cut out um but i can continue from where i left off yes depictions of native american symbols can be found in the gym pool lobby and on our merch

092with that being said it's clear that even though we got rid of the physical mascot at sports games we have not been able to rid the student body and administration our collective tendency to uphold the negative stereotypes about indigenous people that are mascot embodies the nonchalance with which the school district places feathers an important symbol in native american culture on various logos represents a careless exploitation of a culture that the majority of students in our schools know little about which is a problem and of itself some say these symbols are designed to honor indigenous people but i urge you to try and imagine for a moment another scenario in which race could be so blatantly appropriated for a mascot for many races it would be seen as incredibly inappropriate for white people it is simply

093unimaginable as white people experience a phenomenon known as the privilege of individuality which means that we are not accustomed to being lumped together and prescribed wonderful one defining characteristic even if you choose to say that the raider embodies a positive characteristic such as bravery it does not justify stereotyping an entire race furthermore i've seen a lot of non-native people claiming that native american students have no reason to be offended i have also seen one particularly eloquent young woman who as an indigenous person has been speaking out in the round of reform comments section and explaining why it is offensive she does not stand alone but even if she did her voice should be reason enough to make the change it is absolutely irrelevant how many people want to keep the raider because of school pride

094as soon as one of your students is hurting that takes priority over any amount of people saying that they value tradition this is not about intent as i have no doubt our school district has good intentions but this is about impact it is clear the impact of the round narrator on our student body and community at large is devastatingly negative school pride is a wonderful thing but it cannot come at the expense of even just one rather student's security in his or her own school thank you and i apologize for any of the technical difficulties that's okay thank you so much miss atkinson thank you okay next we have miss margaret finley martin she was on but seems to have dropped off okay well we can circle back around to her next then is miss

095audrey margolies hi can everybody hear me yes welcome ms margolies and you're a student at radner high school correct i am all right go ahead and continue thank you welcome all right hi my name is audrey margulies and thank you so much for having me i am a rising senior and i am part of the student group bradner for reform the native american face on the side of the building that represents radnor has not been honored in any way there is no part of the radnor curriculum that teaches us the name of the face or the tribe he comes from how ridiculous is it that we learn the name of this logo now in this school board meeting instead of having a part of a curriculum or at least a part of radnor there is

096no honor in degrading centuries of tradition culture and struggle into a nameless image to represent a place of learning honoring a culture includes education and listening to native voices which is absent from radnor radner for reform's goal is to bring native and native american voices to ratner to honor them and move past the disrespect we show native americans nostalgia and tradition is not a valid excuse to defend racism nostalgia can still be alive while still moving forward nostalgia is not dependent on the current high school imagery and if you want to talk about radnor pride then every radnor resident should be proud to move forward towards anti-racism and racial awareness i talk directly to the school board when i say that you are responsible for this racist institution you are as much responsible for the

097nameless native american logo on the side of the building as the person who painted the logo who authorized the logo who put up the logo there is no honor without education and there is no honor without listening to native american voices thank you so much for your time i really appreciate it also we have miss martin miss finley martin welcome if you would give your address please hi my address is 2 30 can you see me yes we can welcome thank you 232 bar clayton circle in bryn mawr pennsylvania thank you i'm a radner resident i grew up in radnor township i'm the oldest of nine children my brother played radner football under coach repeat uh coach um corner george corner and coach george hopson uh i chose to raise my children also in radnor

098i have three that graduated from radnor 2003 was my son michael ryan finley my daughter maggie findlay in 2005 and my son eddie martin in 2018. the two boys played football for radnor from middle school on um we i never none of us ever looked at this as offensive ever we thought the name radnor raiders was a great tribute to the american indians to i mean even my father-in-law is part cherokee indian and he was flattered with it but i just don't seem to understand why people find it offensive even the la raiders moving to las vegas kept their name the las vegas raiders now i just it it breaks my heart to see a beautiful tradition come to an end and you know i just i'm very passionate about radnor football i always have

099been since i watched my brother play saturdays at the high school during the day and then my oldest son uh 1999 was the first season that they got the lights that was exciting and i've been part of radnor's been ratner football's meant a lot to me for a lot of different reasons um it's a it's a wonderful place to go on friday nights to the away games the home games see all your family and friends and i just it breaks my heart that they want to get rid of such a beautiful tradition um i don't know what else to say i don't have exactly what i wrote in front of me i'm not the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to computers and i'm i'm sorry but it just breaks my heart and

100all of his friends both boys um the coaches that have been so so wonderful coach thomas ryan coach rupino ralph rupino george hopson george corner all of them i mean i i just think it's the the private public school i love radnor i moved away for six years and came back home to radnor and raised my my three children and we've been part of bradner community since 1965. that's all i really have to say well thank you miss finley martin for for joining us tonight thank you for listening mm-hmm uh okay next up we have mr yiannopoulos uh hello can you see and uh okay i can hear you hear me now yep if you could just share your address please uh so uh alexanopolis 15 braxton road and before i get into the raider

101i really quickly susan thank you for um at the beginning when you talked about why we're doing it the way we're doing it i know we all have our comments we want to get out but i think it is important that you consider the staff also and the time that they need to give so thank you for that and just because she's on the screen next to me right now this guy guess a digital hug for you and um having listened to the students who went before me i think obviously it's clear that everybody's still getting a great education in radnor so thank you for helping steer our high school through a very tumultuous moment uh not because of this because of covid but you know this is what the longer meeting is apparently going

102to be about so thank you everybody um okay so uh for the raider um yes i am a radnor resident i graduated from radner in 2010 that was my senior year i spent a lot of that year doing a lot of the planning for the pep rally my freshman year i was on the swim team i got a varsity letter that year and i also set a central league record that year so i definitely um you know have good memories of radnor high school and radnor sports and i there seem to be some people who are suggesting that um if you change the mascot that somehow tarnishes those memories and i can't speak for other people's memories but i can certainly say that for me if you change the mascot it will not diminish any

103of those memories one bit and it also won't represent a surrender to communism or any of the other ridiculous things that i have heard some people say about it but um i think the way i think about it is imagine if radnor just didn't have a mascot at all we were a new school or something and we were just looking for the first time would anybody be suggesting a red raider having the kids run fake war paint singing a song that are meant to be war whoops and doing a fake tomahawk shop i don't think anybody would really be suggesting that if we were just starting from scratch i think it's really only because we already have the raider that for some reason seems like a good idea i think that even if we personally

104don't see problems with the raider we have to recognize in the internet age that the pictures of the kids doing the tomahawk chops with the war paint doesn't necessarily look good for other people who might see it whether it's college admissions or uh future employers i think it just is problematic even if you don't see a problem yourself you i think you should be able to see why it's problematic for other people um we have a radner graduate who's a broadway star right now who's played cinderella on broadway i think if you think about what would she do if a reporter asked her about the radnor mascot would she be defending it probably not i think she would probably say no they should have changed it a long time ago i think it'd be better

105if we had a mascot that wouldn't prompt that kind of reaction among an alum i think we should have a mascot that everybody can be proud of i think there's also just the fact that this keeps coming up and i think this discussion about the mascot is going to keep coming up until we change it so i think it makes sense to just fix the problem i think the upsides of keeping the raiders seem minimal they mostly seem to come down to tradition and i don't hear people defend the raider so much as oppose changing it and but i haven't really seemed to gotten a good explanation of why the raider itself is so great so um i mean i just think it's it's really only our mascot now because it has been our mascot

106but just because it was our mascot yesterday and it's our mascot today i don't think that's a good reason to keep it as our mascot tomorrow and i think all of the same thing i just want to bring you attention to the three minutes okay um and i think all of that i think everything i said applies equally to whether you change just the mascot or whether you change the mascot and the name so i would encourage you to change both okay thank you so much okay thank you next we have miss roberta winters got it thank you welcome dr winters we miss you well i miss you too um again by uh roberta winters 326 williams road and rosemont and tonight i'm speaking on behalf of the league of women voters and i would

107like to take this time to applaud you for creating the opportunity to apply for pub allow for public input on whether or not to retain the team name and logos of the radnor high school a special meeting to hear competing points of view on this controversial subject is important although the issue has been previously raised the fact that has emerged once again reflects the same sense that the issue has not yet been totally resolved following the 2013 discussion disappointment was expressed that the mascots had been retired without providing input from the entire radnor community this current venue will assure residents that decisions will not be made without careful consideration of a range of comments and concerns raised by the broader public we believe that it may be impossible for you to resolve the heartfelt differences

108of opinion in a way that will make all parties happy however it is possible to carry out the public discussion in a way that is respectful of all points of view and fair to all those who wish to participate your example will hopefully allow the students administration alumni and the board of public broader public to witness their elected officials in thoughtful consideration as to how to best strike a balance between reform and tradition the importance of civil public discussion of a contentious subject can be under-appreciated in today's polarized world the league of women voters of radner township from whom i speak believes that such civility is an essential element of good government and we thank you for your consideration again thank you good night dr winters thank you so much thank you miss winters next

109we have kyle addis welcome mr addis [Music] mr addis is in but does not have a microphone connected okay or it looks like he's joining right now all right great thank you dr hand there we go welcome mr addison if you could just start off with your address your name and address thank you sure uh kyle addis 511 aston road um so i spent 13 years in the radnor schools and graduated from rather high school in 2018 i was senior class president and co-captain of both the football and lacrosse teams and now attend franklin and marshall college i was very involved during my years in radner schools and have a deep appreciation and passion for our district i have listened to the criticisms of the use of native american imagery i respect that position and

110agree that some changes may be appropriate but we should not completely erase our past but rather embrace it i have spent many hours researching and educating myself about the history of radner schools the name raiders as well as radner's logos during my research i have learned two important things first the name raider was not created in reference to native americans and the name raider is not a native american name and number two radnor schools are home to a truly great and loved man emerson chief metoxin chief a native american himself taught and coached in our district for 22 years radnor middle school still honors two eighth graders who best exemplify sportsmanship and the radner spirit with the emerson chief metoxin award each year in 1965 the euromatoxin retired radner students introduced the native american mascot

111matoxin was instrumental in ensuring that the original mascot was an accurate and respectful representation of native americans i agree with the district's decision to stop having a mascot in 2013 and i think it should be very clear clearly noted that we no longer have a mascot that was the right thing to do i also agree that we should not use a native american facial profile to signify the raider however i do ask the board to keep the name raiders and to keep the current radnor logo that includes the r with the feathers that you can see on my shirt here the name raiders as we have seen from tonight's presentation by mr pettitti has no ties to native americans and is commonly commonly used across the country the feathers honor logo honor metoxin and the

112spirit of respect and love that the radnor community felt for him rather than erasing the past i think we can use it to lift people up strengthen our identity as a school community and teach the importance of diverse experiences and backgrounds let's recognize the reasons why we use the imagery we do and embrace its tradition history and value when students community members and oppo opposing teams and schools ask about our name and logos let's tell our story and share the history that we are so proud of thank you mr addis next we have dr john crosby mr petiti is dr crosby there seems like he's been allowed into the meeting here i um don't know if his mic is active okay dr hand looks like his mic is active okay i'm back then okay here

113we go here it is welcome doctor welcome dr crosby if you could start off with giving your address but i do want to just make a side comment did you ever think that when you rang the bell at the beginning of 2020 year with dr deflaminus that we would have such a school year no i would never have guessed it in a million years uh well welcome it was a wonderful time for me but hello ken good to see you and the board um i do not miss all of these meetings anymore i have been riding her proud for 44 years doctor if you could just uh take a moment and give your address dr crosby uh 44 years 750 king of pressure road and uh two children who graduated from radnor high school uh

114two granddaughters who graduated after 13 years both have graduated from college and are working i want to thank you for having this first zoo meeting i've never had one like this before but i actually am here because of the uh uh the radnor uh i ha uh the uh the ragnar for uh reform uh were interested in what my position might be so i had a zoo meeting last friday with the three or four of the people that are members of that group and i was so impressed as always with the how articulate the students are i told them that i would be willing to write a letter of recommendation for what my position might be at this time back in my day george corner was a was the high school football coach we had

115george hobson nectar we have all of those kinds of people and i probably attended every home football game in the 12 years i was here and i don't remember ever seeing a ride a uh tommy hawk shop i don't remember seeing a person running up and down the side you know sidelines dressed like an indian the only thing i could remember is that picture on the wall at the football stadium but the the uh the image and the uh whole notion of of the mascot was never mentioned in the 12 years that i was here so this is something new to me but i did uh prepare a a letter which i would like to read to you basically to tell you what my position would be today it may have been a little different

116uh 44 years ago i started in 1976. it was good to see roberta winters again she and i had a few clashes over time and i guess you miss her too let me start real quick united states history is replete with examples of strong leadership and pathetic leadership president andrew jackson willfully signed the 1830 indian removal act to force sixty thousand and native americans to walk 2200 miles to oklahoma indian territory i'm from texas and my my mother was an okie so i know all about that history but uh thousands of indians perished in that walk of cold and hunger and disease on the way there but then we had president theodore roosevelt who had great opposition he helped the u.s citizens recover from the great depression and then we had president ronald reagan famously

117shouted mr gorbachev tear down this wall you know the quality of leaderships makes a difference and you're in that position why is it that we understand black lives matter but when it comes to racism directed to the american indians they are the first people living on this continent we have to explain why indian mascots in painting your fest red denigrates those people social science research of the american psychological association provides empirical evidence that harmful symbols have serious psychological and social cultural consequences for native american children and youth schools are a place of learning and these images have a negative effect not only on the students of indian heritage but also send the wrong message to all the students who have had little or no contact with indigenous people and that's really what bradner high school

118is i ask these students they do not know a single person that has indian blood in them at the high school at the present time but we have a responsibility for all of those kids strong leadership by this school board to remove harmful stereotypes will show the radner community that disrespect of any human being is not acceptable within our boundaries radnor schools have been the paragon the gold standard in education this calls not only for removing insulting images but also for educating students that we have a moral obligation to discard symbols of racism hatred and division it should not have to be a question that native americans are not mascots they are full humans who certainly deserve respect and equal treatment as john lewis civil rights labor and congressman who died on july the 17th

119wrote in his essay to he read at the funeral of himself and i quote use your power to make a difference by demanding respect for human dignity as a teenager john lewis heard the voice of dr martin luther king jr on an old radio that he had and i quote we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice it is not enough to say it is better it will get better by by you must do something and you must do something now and do what's right when you see something that is not right you must say something you must do something so i asked the board show this community that you are a school board that will not continue to perpetuate harmful symbolism disparaging native americans that's my position and i hope it will be yours

120thank you for your time good to see you all bless you thank you dr crosby and i just want to let the public know i i know that i did let dr crosby speak longer than the three minutes we chatted with him for a few minutes and and honestly out of deference to his 17 years as a superintendent in our community and and honestly because i was taught to respect my elders i afforded dr crosby um a few extra minutes and anyone who has issue with that um they should certainly uh feel free to critique me and criticize me directly um thank you dr crosby thank you good to see you you too yes thank you dr crosby uh next we have leslie greenfield uh mr petit is miss greenfield there oh hello are you

121able to get me yes hi miss greenfield welcome um if you could please state your address your name and address and uh because i know that you're not a radner resident if you would uh state your interest in speaking to us tonight thank you absolutely absolutely i'm leslie greenfield 1119 ashton road in wynwood i'm the granddaughter of emerson matoxin and i'm presenting our letter to the board on behalf of our family including his two surviving children yvonne matakson brockman and timothy matoxin emerson matoxen a teacher and coach at radner junior high school retired in 1965 after 22 years of service we are writing to weigh in on the discussion about the name raiders and the native american imagery that has accompanied that name for many years indeed we understand that some wish to perpetuate the

122name and imagery to honor my grandfather a member of the oneida nation of wisconsin our family is writing because we would like to express our deep conviction that using native american imagery along with the name raiders perpetuates racial stereotypes and should no longer be used anywhere but particularly not in an educational setting the name raider has negative connotations synonyms include pillager warmonger and aggressor in the 21st century and particularly following the recent protests for racial justice we all need to understand that associating raiders with native americans in general or my grandfather in particular perpetuates a negative stereotype that simply is no longer acceptable it is well past time for the radnor school district to stop using caricatures of native americans and remove all such images and change the name to something more appropriate and well

123suited to a school district that serves children and families of many races and cultures if you retain the name and imagery you must carefully consider what you are teaching and communicating to the community you serve perpetuating stereotypes of any sort even if you believe the imagery is noble gives license to those who will perpetuate stereotypes of every sort including the more obviously hateful ones racial stereotypes are offensive and that's where this discussion should end such imagery is too simplistic to represent native americans who are ethnically linguistically and culturally diverse and include more than 570 federally recognized sovereign nations although emerson metoxin died in 1989 he remains a revered and much-loved member of our family his legacy is already well represented by the emerson chief metoxin award which is presented to the eighth grade radnor middle

124school male or female athlete who best exemplifies around their traditions of sportsmanship loyalty and endeavor our family feels very strongly that clinging to this offensive stereotype out of a misplaced sense of tradition or in an effort to honor him would do a disservice to his memory and everything he stood for in sports and in education respectfully this is submitted on behalf of myself and emerson matoxin's children yvonne mataxin brockman and timothy matoxin his grandchildren eric brockman karen brockman douglas brockman jason toxin jessica matoxin and his great grandchildren jill greenfield jacob greenfield david greenfield jason brockman emily brockman and daniel brockman thanks very much for allowing me to submit that letter thank you ms greenfield thank you next we have nia annad hello welcome miss anad and you're a student at radnor high school yes i

125am okay welcome thank you thank you um so hi my name is naya anan and i'm a rising junior and a member of the student group ratner for reform i moved to radnor the summer before fifth grade and at the time i had no idea what the mascot even was it was not until i became a freshman at the high school that i began to interact with the mascot and truly all it stands for the first time i ever saw the mascot was during band camp that summer i had never been to a football game before and was honestly shocked and confused upon seeing the native mascot plastered on the wall of my school's football field later that week we learned the chop chant and i was surprised at how normal it seemed to the

126other students i remember whispering under my breath to a friend are we allowed to be doing this receiving a strange look back i brushed it off despite my discomfort i now know that dozens of band students felt the same way but did not speak out because of the culture of ignorance perpetuated by the ratner community seeing my school represented by an openly racist symbol that marginalizes and oppresses a part of our community causes shame to myself and several others who want to feel proud to call themselves radnor students every single member of our community deserves to feel comfortable and respected and removing this blatantly obvious symbol of racism and insensitivity is only the beginning in our path to necessary change thank you for your time thank you so much ms anad mr petit yes next

127we have uh win wong welcome ms wong uh if you uh could please state your name and address i'd appreciate it address 502 dawn lane and uh before my time starts i'd like to just say that i'm writing this letter on behalf and i'm speaking on behalf of the six founding members of radnor rise a community group in radner composed of radnor parents and other allies who are dedicated to advancing diversity inclusion and equity in radnor township school district these members are rishti batra diana perez-rodgers mary kate wilhelm marisa tildman and janelle mcdonald i myself am a psychologist college professor and mother of three children in radner schools thank you very much i'd like to read our letter we write as a concerned group of parents in the radnor community with children attending radnor schools

128in regards to the radnor raiders team name and mascot we enthusiastically support that radnor township school district commit to entirely phasing out the raiders team name and mascot and replacing it with a new team name that our community can actually be fully proud of this includes a concrete and timely plan for retiring all visual and textual references to the name and mascot in all school communications and materials as well as in the physical plant of the school itself we also support that these important discussions about the raiders should not be forgotten but should serve as a profound teaching moment in the rtsd curriculum that can help our students understand the reasons why this change was necessary and important for fostering schools and communities that value diversity inclusion empathy and equality the team name and mascot

129are the vestiges of a shameful american history in which native communities have suffered violence and trauma due to colonization and oppression we know from the existing psychological and sociological research and the well-documented voices of native communities that the use of names and mascots that mythologize and tokenize native americans while also erasing native communities and voices in other ways causes great harm to those folks further we believe that harmful stereotypes and caricatures of any group degrades all of us regardless of whether we have membership in that group none of us want our children attending radnor high school driving a raider road under signs and scoreboards that hold this caricature in some form and in an environment where the chop may rear its ugly head how can we possibly explain to our kids that these images and

130messages are okay the answer is simple we can't we implore rtsd to listen to the voices of people from native communities who are the ones directly impacted by team names and mascots such as radnorater they are the voices we should all be listening to and amplifying and it is clear what they are calling for we implore rtsd to value impact over intention we've heard the argument that the reader's name and mascot is meant to be positive or has good intentions behind it however its harmful impact trumps any good intentions and its harmful impact trumps any positive nostalgic associations that some may have of the raiders in closing there has been a ground swell of support for advancing diversity equity and inclusion in rtsd in recent months if rtsd cannot make this most basic decision to

131retire a demeaning mascot and team name that is the public face of the school district to other communities then quite frankly we're just paying lip service to diversity inclusion empathy and equality it is well past time that we retire the radar thank you all for your time thank you ms wong okay next we have dylan roche hi welcome mr roche and i as i believe you're a graduate if you could please give me your address can i do it privately uh to make public comment if you're an adult we ask that you give your name an address in the form yes our policy for public comment and what we're adhering to for grownups is uh name and address is that so mr kristofco mr batchelor i haven't been adhering to that for students tonight they're

132minors yes yeah no it's a if you if when the public want to speak they should give their name and address um you know students we haven't been requiring students to give their address but if it's a if it is a resident who's not a current student they should be given their address that's correct that's part of the board policy 06 it's a requirement that's part of that policy my name is dylan roche my address is 3a4 morris road thank you uh so my name is dylan roche i graduated from radnor high school in june with the class of 2020 and i had a great experience at radnor and i'm very grateful for my time there however i am embarrassed by the racist stereotypes that ratner perpetuates through its raider name and logo arguing that

133the mascot should not be changed because that's the way it's always been is not enough to erase the harmful consequences that it has caused for native americans and the racial stereotypes that it enforces among non-native people seeing the amount of people that genuinely think that associating native americans with a stereotypical cartoon and violent title honors the native american community only shows how the mascot truly has influenced us to buy into these inaccurate and offensive stereotypes decades of research proves that these mascots cause negative psychological effects for native american students and refusing to address this issue and respond accordingly in order to protect a racist tradition is antithetical to ratner's efforts of diversity inclusion and equity if ratner's entire sense of community really would be jeopardized by removing ourselves from an offensive misrepresentation of native americans

134maybe we should re-examine what our values are and what we find valuable within our community many people defending the logo and imagery claim that anyone who wants to dissociate from it is merely virtue signaling meaning that we are only publicly expressing our opinions to create the outward appearance of good character rather than offering a substantive position that will ultimately benefit the community but isn't that exactly what radner has been doing for the past several decades through the use of their mascot representing our school with a caricatured head of a native person to honor native american people without actually teaching about their history in our schools and rejecting any critical input from the native american community is one of the best examples of an empty gesture of respect i could possibly think of the ability to

135identify where we have done wrong and learn from our mistakes is not virtue signaling and just what needs to happen to create a more inclusive and equitable environment in our schools and in our community how can we expect to move further and be uh in becoming allies to the native american community if we can't even take the first step of separating ourselves from a dehumanizing name and imagery that actively enforces negative stereotypes there is no way to believe that we are honoring the native american community with our current name and logo without blatantly ignoring decades of social science and the voices of native american people including those in our own community please make the choice to promote positive change by removing the raider name and mascot and offering a more inclusive and in-depth education about

136native american history to properly honor native american culture thank you for your time thank you mr roche thank you now miss cynthia moz okay hello oh welcome miss moss are you a student at radnor high school right i am okay great hello my name is cynthia matz and i'm a rising junior at radnor high school i'm a member of the high school's color guard performed with the band at every football game and am constantly and constantly immersed in the raider culture i'm also a member of random for reform an organization dedicated to ending harmful cultural stereotypes with the rent within the radnor community i've been required to dance to the tomahawk chop for the past two years when the writerite first published the piece about the tomic hawk chop i did not understand why it

137could not be removed from the band's song rotation i soon learned from my friends and band that it wasn't necessarily the decision of the band director and songs could be required to stay in the rotation i was appalled why would a band whose members and director oppose playing a song be required to continue using it why would a song require why would a school require a song that the community has proven time and time again is damaging random middle and high school have both received no place for hate designations for many years and rms is quickly approaching a full decade with this distinction but isn't it ironic that a school portraying a stereotyped mascot receives an honor from the anti-defamation league i've attended adl and no place for hate events representing ratner and have met

138wonderful people from schools in philadelphia and the surrounding area a student handbook i received at one central event states that adl stands for fighting bigotry in all forms is ratner upholding the mission of no place or hate schools by keeping the red or raider are they fighting bigotry and for all of their students while the band continues to play the tomahawk chop at football games the no place for hate program is about creating an environment that both reduces bullying and allows for conversations about anti-bias within the school community is render promoting antibiotics within their schools while multiple students have demonstrated the damages of stereotype mascots to indigenous students for a writer to earn the place on the list of schools with no place for hate designation the rather mascot and tomahawk chop must be retired

139thank you thank you miss moss uh mr t.d we have a last the final comment here at least for someone who wanted to join us tonight for the zoom and that is from mr david wood uh welcome mr wood yeah hello welcome mr wood if you could state your address okay hello my name is david wood i live at 716 south roberts road in bryn mawr pennsylvania 1908.7 oh sorry about that 1901 0. um i think from the previous speaker that didn't want to give his address i can certainly understand that as um there has been some pretty hateful speech going around and i i just want the board to be aware that the the and putting somebody at risk by doing that i think and i think you need to be careful um my

140family said in this township and attended rider schools for over a century i'm here tonight to support the retirement of the raider in the present today we use feathers to represent native americans and all radnor apparel we have representation of native native americans hanging above prevost field we have signs that's that welcome us to raider nation sports teams have shirts made making references to native americans in a negative way we have a street sign that says radar road and big ladders we have community members emboldened by the district's acceptance of the raider resulting in systemic we have a school name and imagery that is counter to our mission you will hear that we have more important things to do i argue that you cannot address equity and race without removing the raider first in the

141past the 1960s saw the rise of the term raider this doesn't seem to have occurred with any malice or disrespect similar to the past use of non-non-academic to describe our lower level courses or foreign language to describe world languages in our program of studies we've changed to make them something different today native american imagery chance language became a regular part of student life at radnor the issue of name and imagery has been reviewed several times most recent reviews at the school board level resulted in the retirement of the raider i saw the the native american head come down from prevost field the imagery was removed from the gym floor and sports uniforms between now and then this imagery has crept back and the head is back up our memories of our school days are preserved

142regardless of our current school name and mascot in the future you're going to vote to end the use of the raider and all associated image imagery you are going to form a committee of students teachers administrators board members and community members to choose a new name and mascot with a short timeline so that everybody can move forward let's end on the right side of history and rather i ask that you vote to retire the raider it is an urgent issue unlike covid much easier to resolve there's only one real option here we cannot enter another school year as raiders we need to listen to the majority of native voices saying please stop hurting us if we don't it will define us as a school community sometime the right thing to do is not the popular

143thing the community needs to pull together around the selection of a new team mascot and name we cannot afford the delay thank you thank you mr wood okay so i uh mr petit i believe that's the end of the commenters who wanted to come on to our zoom reading and read their comments themselves is that a is that so yes that concludes those that wanted to join the meeting and we have um now if we want to move on to those that have submitted comments that we have to read as a district okay great so um i'd like to try to be consistent here and again it's it's on me that we've i've been lax about asking for an address in the last few months but so if you're reading a comment and it's uh

144and it's from an adult if you would read their address i'd appreciate it if they're a current student if you would just state that they're a current student and um and then we we did i did make the um decision for for the board policy and for a special meeting that we were going to accept um comments from non-residents who are radnor alums because this is something that obviously radnor alum alums feel strongly about so we're going to proceed in that manner oh mr petey you are muted thank you so how we're going to do this is i'm going to read 10 and then i'm going to turn it over to allison who's also with us to read 10 and we'll go back and forth just to break things up a little bit okay starting

145with thomas lee 404 south roberts road in bryn mawr a viable option may be to keep the writer's name but associated with a different type of mascot like the football oakland slash los angeles raiders ahoy matey next comment from joel prussian at 48 haymarket lane when i first came to rhs 10 years ago as a student i was disappointed to see the obvious racist imagery plastered to the side of the school in the choice of a mascot it was an honest ominous omen for the racism sexism and anti-semitism i would see and experience at the school the rhino community has a long way to go to eliminate bigotry from the community by changing the name and image of the mascot is an obvious and easy first step this should be a unanimous decision next from

146trent dylan at um get his address here excuse me 772 wood leah road as predominantly white school district in high school reiner exists from a history of genocide and slavery as well as history of propagating and benefiting from these injustices through with exploitative treaties environmental destruction conduct leasing jim crow laws redlining mass incarceration and other systemic practices as individuals who result from this history we have a more obligation to understand and correct for these injustices that persist through generations the very least we can do is not hold onto and take pride in archaic and racist symbolism such as the raider name and logo even just seeing that there is a debate surrounding the removal of this symbolism which should be straightforward and have taken place decades ago communicates an extreme lack of knowledge of and

147appreciation for history and reflects dismally on the school and entire township those who are advocating for the con continuation of the logo and name should reflect upon the white supremacy they are projecting to their township and those who call ryden her home and strive to become more open-minded and adaptable in the face of new information i hope you're able to rise to the call and help miranda take the very first and most basic step of addressing historical injustices against indigenous americans by removing the racist symbolism of reiner's athletic department both the name and raider logo should simply be reinvented from c virginia o'hare 900 academy lane we need to remove any offensive references and cultural appropriations eg feathers tomahawk from the radar mascot it's 2020 in a year for profound introspection and rebuilding if people

148in system retain the name raider then perhaps a knight or similar image could be used however i challenged us as a community to do better and use this opportunity to create a new name that symbolizes our commitment to embracing and encouraging diversity in our community from megan johnson 219 pembroke avenue i understand there are individuals who like to see the mascot discussion as a priority for this moment in time and view this as an opportunity however i feel that efforts need to be focused on getting our students back to school the mental health detriments that will be associated with not returning to a productive structured school schedule will be incredibly far-reaching and will likely not fully understand the damage that has been done during the past five months for quite some time my children and

149for that matter most students in the district desperately want and need to be in school as much as possible i feel that the discussion surrounding our mascot is not the most pressing issue and while i can appreciate the opinions of the students who have started this movement and do not feel that the district should be prioritizing it's time to address this now in random we pay a lot of taxes to provide our children with the best education possible and i feel that the board and administration need to keep that in mind the district feels that they must address it keep it simple don't change the name just change the mascot i.e las vegas raiders has a mascot that shouldn't offend anyone please stay focused on the pressing issue of getting our kids back to school

150as much as possible and for as long as possible next from emma nakozia 334 strathmore road in bremar i fully support changing writer's mascot to something that does not include any cultural references or racist stereotypes as more and more teams and schools make this long-needed change random must do the right thing and follow suit nothing will make me a prouder alumni than making this change from newark kaplan three shannon circle in bryn mawr it's a district that prides itself on being open welcoming forward thinking and in no place for hate zone and is outrageous it's such an offensive symbol of stereotyping and cruelty be placed at the center of our community we are spreading symbols of aggression hate prejudice and inequality when our mascot is an offensive depiction of a minority it is ridiculous that

151we are still calling ourselves the raiders the level of hypocrisy our school board is enforcing is bewildering there's no valid reason for keeping our logo the same as it has been times change and with it goes the error in which it was acceptable to highlight this offensive symbol why do we have to be so stuck in a time of aggression and hatred shouldn't we evolve with the times and allow ourselves to be more welcome and forward thinking from sarah carroll to to aldwin lane in villanova as the mother of an rhs rising junior who plays a sport every season i'm running to support the removal of all cultural references from raiders to brander's teams years of research from social scientists and psychologists makes it clear that having one's culture used as a mascot is not

152an honor miranda's native american imagery and the writer name undermine our district's educational mission and its stated core values the fact that it has been a tradition for decades does not make it acceptable for high school athletes and fans to rally around a team name and images stereotype people miranda students are part of a wonderful vibrant 21st century community and they deserve better than the 18th century mascot thank you for addressing this issue and thank you for your dedicated service emma ryan 113 ashwood road i think we need to assure that this is what the native americans in our school want from the radar for reform instagram page we do not see any definitive evidence that native random students are offended i think the random reform page is creating a divide in our school and

153should go about this issue in a more civil way i suggest we directly reach out to native americans in our school through a survey to get some actual native american representation our next comment comes from sarah jane harrington 757 newtown road in villanova i am a 2013 alumni and was captain of the cheerleading team my junior and senior years at ratner it was not until i went to college to cheer for a d1 school with an animal mascot that i really came to terms with radnor's racist mascot name and iconography i'm ashamed to think of all the times i led fans to perform a tomahawk talk and did not question the insidious implications of the term raider all while under a head of a stereotyped native american man i urge the school board to remove

154the imagery and change the mascot to something that aligns with our community values of inclusion i will always be a supporter of our student athletes especially the cheerleading team and i believe that students should be able to cheer for our teams without the shame of knowing their name is offensive john mcquaid 753 homestead drive elverson ta there is no need to drop the raider nickname for the high school's athletic teams the red raider mascot from what i understand rightly was removed in 2013. retaining the decades-long tradition of the raider name makes sense but expunging any direct or indirect connection of the nickname related to native americans is imperative retaining the raider nickname but adding a new mascot if one is required is a logical step recently in social media forums i have suggested the new

155mascot be a griffin or griffin g-r-y-p-h-o-n which is associated with welsh lore the welsh influence on the main line with locales in bryn mawr and balikinwood to name two is self-evidence moreover just across lancaster avenue from the high school images of griffins appear on the walls of the blue root interchange retaining the raider name but adopting a new mascot perhaps a griffin from mythology would be an appropriate start of a new tradition go radnor go raiders john mcquaid class of 1965. jenny mcguire five longwood drive wayne dear school board members our family which consists of seven graduates as well as fourteen nieces and nephews that have recently graduated from radnor high school would like to go on record stating our opposition to changing the name of the school mascot we thought it would be easier

156to send one email instead of 21. thank you for your time and dedication to our students madden 629 south devon avenue i don't know why the rhs mascot has not been changed in recent years but i imagine the arguments heard then are the same as the arguments i hear now there are more important things to worry about we don't have the resources the budget is too tight maybe in a couple years as far as i can tell the board has been inching along with half measures ever since this issue first gained some prominent traction over a decade ago i understand the sentiment behind those arguments right now you and board members before you are trying to be pragmatic the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that big logo on the side of the high school

157doesn't seem to be slipping so that's tomorrow's problem but please understand that every year that this issue is back burned in pursuit of pragmatism is another year where ignorance prejudice and lazy racism are cemented in runner's traditions i obviously cannot know what legal financial and bureaucratic hoops need to be jumped through in order to make this change i'm sure it's easy to look at all the work that must be done to make this happen and feel like it's pointless it's easy to imagine the backlash you will get at every angle from dinner parties to email inboxes and kick it down the road it's so easy to think i really want to die on this hill if you have this feeling and sense yourself flirting with the comforts of pragmatism please keep this in mind the

158biggest community focal point in your town has a giant native american head on the side of it and the school's mascot is a cinema is a synonym for thief it's obvious how wrong that is you know how wrong that is please don't stay complicit apart from the side of the building i know the football helmets still use the feather and they are probably remnants of the native american iconography elsewhere in the school's imagery apparel interior decoration all leftovers from previous attempts to appease this issue once enough people got annoyingly loud all of it has to go stop putting band-aids on our town's history of ignorance fix it everywhere at the very least pay someone a hundred dollars on upwork to design a pirate logo instead of a native american one at least that would look

159cool on a mug sandy roan 2218 bryn mawr avenue bardmore pa my mother uncle and i are all bradner graduates i graduated in 1963. my mother taught at rosemont elementary please keep radnor raiders as the name for radnor high the mascot can go i never remember having a mascot but radnor will always be the radnor raiders sally schultz 246 barclayden circle rosemont native american mascots reduce a rich and buried people to a single caricature often as in the case with radnor they focus on violent imagery so that the colonizers could portray the oppressed as something that needs to be controlled they are offensive and rather deserves better vote to retire the raider name and create a new mascot robert a.m ross 522 west coulter street i have no attachment whatsoever to raiders just because something

160has been in place for a long time does not justify permanent existence without a solid reason my choice would be to change the name and imagery to that of the township griffins spelled in the manner written here g-r-y-p-h-o-n-s amanda zajac 137 wooded lane villanova the use of american indian mascots as symbols in schools and university athletic programs is particularly troubling because schools are places of learning these mascots are teaching stereotypical misleading and too often insulting images of american indians these negative lessons are not just affecting american indian students they are sending the wrong message to all students and that was a quote from former american psychological association president ronald f levant kerry gohan 369 strathmore drive hello i am brand new to ratner just having moved from jersey city this summer i am unbelievably excited

161for my twin six-year-olds to attend res this year since the school system was our number one reason for uprooting our lives and moving to a new state my children went to kindergarten with the jc board of ed and their experience was wonderful diverse well-rounded and they have friends of all backgrounds their elementary school was in the top percentages for diversity and they are better for it the only aspect that has tainted my radner introduction so far is the optics that the school district has insisted on keeping not only the writer's name maybe okay on its own but the native american symbolism as well a board of individuals with such stellar educations and backgrounds as yourself must inherently understand how harmful this is to members of the community and also the reputation of respect and cultural

162sensitivity i myself was unsure of how to address this as a new mom in the community but it's too important for my children to see that their new school will continue to be as welcoming and celebratory of all children as their last one thank you for listening i am thankful for your attention michael carp university city housing company 262 lancaster avenue rosemont as one of the largest taxpayers in rainer township i view with dismay that my tax payments are contributing to promoting and perpetuating the raider mascot in the radnor schools candidly it has always seemed to me that symbols of this nature were demeaning to fellow americans whose well-being was fortunately compromised by the actions of our country i regret that i have not previously spoken out on this offensive behavior at this point in

163our history i think it is well past the time to act and change the mascot from tom ellis 908 louis lane in bryn mawr i support the retention of the raider as rander's mascot a mascot is an animal person or thing adopted by a group as its representative symbol and is supposed to bring good luck a raider is seen as a fierce warrior a perfect symbol for athletic teams many teams have native americans mascots chiefs braves indian seminals which incidentally was approved by the seminole nation prior to the florida state university adopting it as its mascot etc while well-intentioned to have a native american as its mascot the washington football team erred in using a slanderous nickname redskins as its named mascot it is the nickname and not the mascot itself that is misguided i

164ask are native americans offended by the rad narrator local native american and x-ray nerd teacher chief patoxin and family approve of the raider and do not believe it to be politically incorrect to have a native american an image as a school mascot nor nor do i believe the word raider which harkens to the fierce warrior symbolism to be culturally insensitive i think native americans have the firmest standing to be personally offended and those local members approve of the mascot class of 1970. justin norian 678 south brynmar avenue my name is justin noria and i'm a rising junior at radder high school i have very strong feelings about the rad narrator i feel i cannot fully embrace my sense of school spirit because of our racist mascot therefore i have joined the random for reform movement

165our white critics often argue that the random mascot honors native american culture however white people do not have the right to say whether or not something offends a marginalized racial minority if our critics had true respect for native americans they would listen to native americans and realize that reducing their rich cultures to a mascot is offensive and dehumanizing monica nakozia 334 strathmore drive i'm the parent of two renter high school alumnae and a taxpayer in the randor school district i fully support the student-led rider for a foreign movement to eliminate the raiders title in native american mascot imagery which disgracefully still adorns the high school building and to drop the chop at school events these are denigrating racist caricatures that disrespect native americans and makes a mockery of the horrors inflicted on them ever since

166europeans first stepped on our continent if lando lake sanchez and washington's nfl team the ex-redskins can change their racist logos so can and must rhs let's stop pretending that the stereotypical cartoonish warrior figure somehow honors native americans it doesn't and the murder raider is nothing for anyone to cherish unless you are interested in supporting old-fashioned macho posturing waiters not people to be admired what kind of message does it send to associate or high school with a nickname that means a person who attacks an enemy in the enemy's territory or a person who attacks business premises in order to steal zarah is trying to encourage piracy and hostile corporate takeovers i hope not the randall for reforming group has done the legwork for the rather township school board now it's time for you to use the

167thoughtful recommendations and start the process of finding non-racist imagery and words that show random pride this will be an ambitious educational endeavor that will spark creativity and strengthen our community thank you gregory davis 2-2 alwyn lane and villanova while i can appreciate that for some especially alums a change in the raider name or conor conononovery still feel will feel like a loss we need to move toward inclusion the calls for change many coming from our current students are going to fade away if we do nothing every year new classes students will be introduced to the name and symbols that deserve as our mascot and it's not a stretch to imagine that calls for change will only grow louder right now the board is faced with a decision either lead on this issue and create a

168process that allows current students to work together to create a mascot or which they can be all be proud or opt to hold out in the name of nostalgia clinging to symbols that are laughably antiquated at best deeply hurtful at worst from a new ramen 143 montrose avenue to keep this brief i would like to share my support for an agreement with the students who are stating not my mascot i feel encouraged when i see signs in the community with this message i think it's time to give this symbol some serious consideration and reflection particularly around the concept of representation i applaud the students who have written thought-provoking pieces on this topic in the local news and elsewhere and have affirmed my stance to those in the community who are opposed to this change what

169exactly are you opposing please take some time to reflect on what specifically upsets you and distill it down for example do you feel that society as a whole is becoming quote to pc and this is the last straw for you do you feel that the image is harmless meaningless and therefore not worth changing or is it something else i believe that if you take the time to do this with the intent of truly exploring the source of your discomfort further you may start to realize that your viewpoint on this issue is not retired entirely reflective of your values from thomas barnhart 419 cornerstone lane hello school board my name is thomas barnhart and i'm an upcoming senior at rauner high school on july 3 it was announced the nfl franchise the washington redskins will be

170completely redesigning with a new name logo and a mascot after years of backlash and criticism although the new name and image haven't been announced yet the team now operates under temporary name the washington football team showing that the franchise recognized racism in their brand and wanted to completely resign it if a national team can concede underlying racism and their brand and change and it's definitely possible for a small school like ranner to follow suit and accept that our school identity is racist and must be changed from jennifer zajac 137 wooded lane i'm running in support of changing the random high school logo and raiders brand as a parent and member of the community and so we reimagined a completely new brand for ratner we are an innovative community i know we can do better and

171continue to strive for excellence in all we do if you had a blank page in front of you today to create any mascot what would you choose to represent ratner this is an opportunity i thank the school board for evaluating and taking careful consideration in this matter from margot flanagan 213 south aberdeen avenue in wayne hi i'm margot flanagan and as a rising senior i have represented the random raiders for three years now i'm a volleyball player as well as an active supporter of radnor's athletics and to say that i've never felt uncomfortable representing my school would be a lie during both home and away games i have heard years about our mascot and subsequently the character of our players whether on or off the court or cheering the bleachers of a football game being

172assumed at radnor means being labeled as a racist and bigot for something that was out of our control aside from this it's also important to recognize the lack of unity within the community with about nine variations of the letter r on jerseys signs and bumper stickers supporter of runner activities don't have a solid figure to root for in rebranding the radar raiders we will not only gain a new way to cheer for our teams and community but also a chance to turn a new lease so now we are faced with a choice we have the opportunity to be on the right side of history we have the opportunity to take steps toward reconciliation we have the opportunity to be empathetic and unified community i sincerely hope we take this opportunity to be better mr petiti

173um well it might be miss gangle's turn yeah i think he's just waiting for alison to connect i can take over i'm sorry about that all right next up we have aina shea 319 madison rhodes as the mother of three now grown graduates of rtsd i believe it's well past time to change the name and logo of radner school team i have made an american ancestry myself although not raised in the culture and i think that the feelings of indigenous people on these matters is well known at this point it doesn't matter if you're from a different ethnicity and you don't find it offensive after you've been told by the impacted group they find it offensive denying expressed feelings and it's in denying expressed feelings is in itself another instance of insult to native americans

174time for a change if you want to link with the past consider instead the radnor griffins which is on the town seal vivian lee formerly chan 153 eaton drive wayne hello my name is vivian chan lee rhs class of 2011 and i am support i am in support of changing the rhs mascot which is a harmful stereotype of native american a mascot of the school should be an image our school can rally behind in sporting events and rallies but the word raider along with the old cartoon image of a native american was very confusing because what exactly did native americans raid in watershed in seventh grade i was taught this land originally was home to lenape tribes and we are all immigrants for everyone who wants to keep the raider name at the very least

175we should have a discussion with representatives from the lenape coalition of pennsylvania to get their opinion on this matter i am thankful and proud to be a radnor alumna but i'm highly uncomfortable saying we are the radner raiders there are plenty of options for better mascots and the time to change is now sophie wallace 860 briarwood road hi my name is sophie wallace and i am entering my senior year i have been a cheerleader at radnor for the past four years i can say that i personally feel very uncomfortable cheering for a mascot that offends people in our community radnor cheerleading has decided to remain neutral on this issue but as a member of the radnor community i feel the need to speak out while i do not speak for the team i have personally

176had multiple experiences where students from other schools have asked how i feel cheering for a mascot that displays hurtful imagery specifically while attending a mandatory cheerleading camp last year i was approached multiple times by students about the meaning of our mascot i was embarrassed to be representing a symbol that negatively affected so many people around me cheerleading is a sport that i am passionate about however the controversy surrounding the raider was enough for me to consider whether or not i should pursue cheer my senior year cheerleading is centered around positivity and encouragement so why are we promoting a mascot that has such a negative effect on our community we are now faced with a choice how can we as a community grow the name of our mascot will always be a debate on whether it's

177harmful or not but as a school we should not be debating over something so simple it's not necessarily the term raiders that most people take offense with it's the negative imagery that is displayed with it at the very least i think it is possible for us to still be the rad innovators however nothing in the school should display appropriation of the native american culture in this uncertain time we should be coming together as a community not bringing each other down alex davis 22 aldwin lane villanova i would like to thank the board for considering changing the mascot at such a chaotic time i hope that today you opt not to defer the inevitable the raider mascot is offensive to the people it claims to honor and an embarrassment to the township that created it should

178you vote to keep the raider incoming high school incoming high schoolers will not care that you had a discussion back in 2020 and the demands for a new mascot will only grow louder there is no future to hold out for what disrespectful imagery will once again become fashionable we've already waited long enough and as our country grows better at picking out symbols of racism alone township standing and heroic defiance of racial justice will become nothing but a shameful relic of the past chip graham 506 west beach tree lane wayne as a white american i do not feel it is my right to decide whether the raider name is offensive to native americans i can see how someone would feel the tomahawk shot is offensive but i believe radnor has taken steps to remove that i'm

179not sure if it will ever be eradicated from the student body at sporting events with or without a name change since i was not there when the raider name came out i cannot comment on if the name was created in order to be offensive i would like to think it was not if we erase all of the native american names how does that recognize them cancel culture has gone too far history should not be erased just because someone is offended without the proper education on the topic let's be educated about this and hear from the native american people the student body should also hear this if native americans find the raider name offensive then we should all understand where they are coming from and accept the change pat corcoran 198 sentinel place southeast marietta georgia

1801978 graduate i believe all grads are tired of the pc commentary in today's climate in the interest of the sensitivity some may have i vote to keep the proud greater name change the mascot the indigenous version a version of the oakland raiders mascot as example pushed the easy button to satisfy the majority sophie gigan 15 forest road wayne both the mascot and the raider name are deeply offensive to native americans most mascots are animals which encourages the untrue belief that a mascot the native american race is somehow animal-like the other human mascots minute men etc are either white or non-race specific so they don't use this so they don't excuse using native americans as a mascot some native students are not offended by it but i have interacted via radnor for reform with native american

181students who do take offense you can't claim that the mascot honors native americans when it stereotypes them when they suffer genocides and when they are oppressed to this day if you really want to honor them hire more native american teachers and represent the race better in history and english classes preston tyrell 21 oakford road the radnor school district is looking for input in the possible name change for the school's mascot i have been able to find several historical photos that shows the school using the name reader without any native american imagery clearly there was a point in time when the schools used raider without anything connected to it also there was time when the school was very closely connected to and used native americans who historically live here before us one can presume that the

182use of native americans was to pay homage to our local history unfortunately with the current situation i am unable to visit the school or local library to review old yearbooks and other historical items to get a true timeline of events there are many schools and teams that use the word raider a person who attacks an enemy in the enemy's territory a marauder the term raider is no more connected to native americans than it is to the colors red or green i would urge the school board to table this topic until we find out what the new normal is and have time to review this matter in full the health and well-being of the students and staff far outweigh the what the sports teams may be called especially if we are not having any sporting events

183finally maybe being called the corporate raiders may be more fitting to our location robin dugan 2814 foster avenue trooper as a third generation radnorite grandmother 1920 father 1941 mother 1948 and me and my sister 1975 and 1976 this erasing of our culture truly breaks my heart chief matoxin must be rolling over in his grave that this issue would even arise and for which the actions would be disrespectful and a dishonor to him and his fellow native americans the name and logo were created to honor and respect him and all native americans i have never ever heard of any complaints from local native americans that i'm aware of why do we have to erase our proud culture to those who have not lived in radnor long enough to know and understand the history of radnor it

184is very sad and i implore the board to keep our history and traditions rather than erasing our community and culture and pandering to a few noisy residents thank you amy lee russell 334 strathmore drive bryn mawr hello my name is amy lee russell and i am a radnor high school graduate class of 2013. i am writing to you to i'm writing i am writing to you to ask you to change the terribly racist and insensitive mascot of the radner raider i never sat quite right with me that the seemingly progressive and inclusive community at rhs perpetuated the offensive stereotype of indigenous people and their culture and heritage many indigenous peoples have shared how personally offensive and inappropriate the continual use of their ancestors as a mascot is and it is high time runner high school

185listen and make that change a statement by the american psychological association president ronald f levin e.d said the use of american indian mascots is symbols in schools and university athletic programs is particularly troubling because schools are places of learning these mascots are teaching stereotypical misleading and too often insulting images of american indians these negative lessons are not just affecting american indian students they are sending the wrong message to all students with that statement in mind it is unacceptable for radnor high school to continue the use of the word raider as a mascot i assume you do not want to hurt students even unintentionally but certainly not inconsequentially by continuing and perpetuating harmful stereotypes by continuing to use the mascot i believe for many years and want to continue believing that radnor high school is and

186can become a more inclusive and diverse community welcoming to all and ending the use of the raider as the mascot is one step in that direction it is not too late to recognize past mistakes i know it is uncomfortable to recognize fault and admit mistakes but we are all humans and we make mistakes the best way forward in my mind is to recognize mistakes and learn from them i want to be a proud graduate of rhs but i cannot support the rhs community wholeheartedly knowing the mascot will continue to be used during my time at rhs i was part of the marching band and played at each football game i was offended by the chant sang at every gate at each and every game i refused to chant it as i got older but it

187was so disappointing to see fellow classmates sing it at each game i understand the desire to cheer on the football team and enhance school spirit but there must be another way to support the players and not perpetuate racist and offensive stereotypes of a diverse community thank you for taking the time to read and consider these thoughts christopher kilby 246 bar clayton circle two of my children graduated from rhs in recent years both were bothered by the use of a native american caricature as a school mascot and the atomic hawk chop fight song unless the board can present evidence that most native americans approve of this practice i do not see how self-respecting and other respecting rather students alumni teachers staff and administrators can continue with this recurring themes taught to my children since their early

188days at res were respect and community how is using a caricature of a native american consistent with this will northington 370 bellrose lane radner to the rtsc school board i am a radnor graduate from the class of 2016. i appreciate the education i received in the redner school system having had the privilege to attend render schools from the entirety of my k-12 career the best time to address and amend the radnor athletics name and mascot has long since passed the second best time however is today the raider image is long overdue for rebranding rtsc has acknowledged the hurtful use of indigenous america and mystery imagery multiple times in recent years yet has neglected to thoroughly act on its words in my time at rhs i recall attending a seminar where a specialist talked about the

189white right way to reimagine the raider name offering ideas for new mascots i was impressed with the thoughtfulness of the discussion and eager to see positive change on campus yet four years after my graduation nothing has changed if radner is the safe and respectful place it claims to be a place i know it can be then it is imperative the raider name be retired thank you from heather gill 143 ivan avenue and st davids a first priority is to determine how rounder township school district will open in the fall time should be spent finalizing a plan for both virtual and safe in-person school attendance time spent discussing the mascot is something that could be addressed in the future once the school reopening has been determined i do not understand why the name raider is offensive

190and should be replaced i will be watching the meeting to try and understand i value our history and hate to see it change because some not all find the word raider offensive ben hart 320 metal meadow brook circle i'm a rising junior this year and would like to share my thoughts about the situation regarding the name raider that we have found ourselves in as a member of the random football team my brothers and i fight every friday night for the pride history and regard that the name raiders hold the name raider is not meant to symbolize the derogatory ideas of native americans instead the name on the chest represents random tradition of excellence on and off the field and allows for a right of passage for students to be associated with our community's achievements by

191supporting improving the will of the culture ratner has worked to create i think it is quite obvious that the random community is not cheering for racism and belittlement of native americans but for the brotherhood and sisterhood the name creates among our radnor student body and community for example when i step onto the field with my teammates as a raider i know that each and every one of them has my back and will compete to the last second possible to represent the selfless hard-working and over-achieving culture that brandon represents and has embodied for centuries taking down the native american head is understandable and banning the tomahawk chop is as well even though the band is the only member of the community that initiated the celebration but the notion to get rid of the raider name seems

192flawed the petition made by iran or alumni member to keep the name was signed by 510 plus members of the community and previous alumni which shows me that there is more to the writer name than the claim that the ratner openly supports racism and the name raider is what perpetuates it it is evident that a vast piece of the community holds the raider name to be to different values and in higher regard than its opposition does the meaning behind our alma mater seems to have been distorted to fit a specific narrative of the proposed injustice in our school thank you for all the hard work the board has done from discussing this issue to reopening our schools chloe hannah 316 orchard way wayne hello my name is chloe hannah i have lived in the grander

193area since preschool and i am a rising senior i believe there is a massive amount of work to be done to fix the lack of racial equality in our school and community including current day events we learn in school what subject of history we are taught and how we are taught to view them it also seems because we attend a public school there is this unwritten rule that we aren't supposed to talk about controversial events at school whether about racial injustice politics women's rights or any subject that could spark arguments and personal options it feels as though we are only allowed to whisper it it's just the atmosphere we are in that causes us to be blocked from discussing current events we have a lot of work to do in changing how our voices are

194heard that being said when it comes to the mascot i recently read a comment from a native american student at ratner that no one has reached out to the student equity group and that the students leading the mascot pages are not friends with or reaching out to students who are native american while i have my own opinions on the matter the students are most affected by the mascot should have the strongest voice i appreciate the articles from surrounding tribe members and we need to do more amongst our native american students instead of the voices of majority of white students ellen marquis 209 country gate road in wayne as a undergraduate class of 79 i don't want my alma mater to continue to offend people and represent racism it's time to retire the raider perhaps random

195rocks will better represent one of the greatest high schools in the country thanks for listening molly gallagher 341 yorkshire road as a 2020 graduate i strongly agree that the raider name is part of our identity as a school and community and there is no reason to get rid of it go raiders from marissa dimitas 206 poplar avenue in wayne i do not think the random raider mascot should be removed as a ninth grade student at radnor i educated myself on this topic a native american mascot was chosen to honor chief matoxin a proud native american and well respected member of the writer community in the mid-1930s render adopted the name raiders with no connections to the mascot it wasn't until the 1960s that the mascot was voted on by the student body i believe as

196random students we should proceed to honor our mascot in the history and continues to hold from megan subback 326 st david's road wing see the mascots i see the mascots the walk every time i walk into the turf for gym class or at a football game or when i drive by and spot it from my car it makes me feel pretty ashamed and it's not something that our school puts out into the world even when people have shown they take offense to it however the mascot is not what makes for under sports or what defines the nature of athletics rauner has an amazing athletic community and it's not defined by a mere mascot rightfully changing the mascot because it's something that people take offense to is not going to change radnor's athletics the action is

197just acknowledging people's feelings that a piece of imagery is offensive to their culture while i understand that change can be unnerving and hard to accept this change is the right one and it's a necessary step that writers should take if they want to continue to practice values of inclusivity and acceptance dan griffin 2-5 alduin lane villanova while i don't want to make these school board sleepovers any longer than necessary i do want to express my gratitude for the ongoing work of the ratner school board managing policies and budgets is challenging and thankless enough and leading through global pandemics and turbulent social shifts was not part of the job description but no one has resigned retired or refused to take up the new challenges we are grateful for your dedication a great deal of effort has

198gone into determining the most appropriate way to re-open our schools in the fall much of that effort has been expended in accessing where we are as a community and weighing the risks and benefits of our decisions across our community as a whole i hope the raiders schools community can apply that same inclusive consideration to tonight's agenda where we are as a community is very different than where we were in 1893 when the school was found and the mascot likely chosen and different from 2013 when the decision was made that the mascot was inappropriate and should be retired today the mascot is still inappropriate and the decision to discontinue the use of its associated name imagery is a matter of recognizing today's reality many comments posted recently and made tonight have been about protecting random high

199schools traditions in history these have their place but the school board was elected to ensure the school's progress and future nostalgia doesn't make one prepared or competitive in a changing world our challenge is to prepare our church for what comes next change growth and progress are not predictable but they are inevitable across our country schools universities clubs and sports franchises are reevaluating the names and images that represent them histories and personal preferences are giving way to pragmatic assessments of contemporary realities the washington redskins did not retire their name after deciding to take the moral high road and recognize it in a changing market it was in the organization's best interest to do so times change time moves forward not backward nor does it stand still the 50s aren't coming back confederate flags aren't coming back

200and the use of cultural stereotypes and marketing and advertising is being left behind miranda school district recognized the red raider was inappropriate in 2013. every year since the argument the the associated name and logo remain appropriate or even somehow honor native americans grows more untenable no one is asking for the red raider to come back and for good reason is unlikely the stereotypes associated with the related name and logo will somehow become less offensive in years to come it is unlikely future writers students that are taught and increasing cultural awareness is a pillar of diversity equity inclusion will be more accepting of racial caricatures it is time to move on and retire the raider thank you edward martin 232 barclay and circle bryn mawr i'm in favor of keeping the waiter's name in mascot due

201to the importance of honoring an individual who meant so much to the radar community amy gallagher 341 yorkshire road bryn mawr please consider saving the rad and raiders mascot as it is a symbol of pride and respect for those who came before us kate hart 520 meadowbrook circle i am writing to you as a parent of three students one of the things we cherish most about radnor is that is it is a district founded on tradition and a sense of community these traits are what separates radnor from other districts as we celebrate milestones at all at all our schools such as the walk to wayne camp canada emphasis the trip to sandy hill and the nation's longest running football rivalry the radnor vs lower marion game these are memories our students cherish as part of

202their radnor experience another one of these traditions is being a raider when defining what it means to be a raider at radnor one must first look at the definition of a raider according to merriam-webster the word raider was first used in night in 1861 to describe a soldier that is specially trained or a fast lightly armed ship this term was not used to describe any particular ethnic group the term raider was not used at radnor until the 1960s when it was adopted to honor emerson with oxen a native american and a revered radnor coach that served our district for 22 years upon his retirement an award was given annually to the student that exemplified the most spirit on the athletic field the term raider at radnor honored him as a teacher native american and supporter

203of our students it was not used as a stereotype to describe native americans as plunderers or killers in 2013 the board addressed the concerns that using the term raider was insensitive to native americans and retired the mascot they also decided to keep the name raider to strike a balance between tradition and respecting all people i urge you to keep the name raider in order to keep our traditions alive when we cheer for our raiders we cheer for all our students accomplishments whether athletic or academic our students are specially trained on and off the field our students are fast and armed athletes and fast and armed athletes and academics in how they face their opponents our students have won championships not only on the fields the diamonds the gridiron the courts but also in the classroom

204in the fields of science debate business and most recently the press award when we cheer for the raiders we cheer for our students perseverance and skill in the classroom and on the field just as the raider is part of bradner's history so are the leni lunapedes indians that lived here before radnor was settled i encourage our district to educate our children about the peaceful lenape people and integrate this into the third and ninth grade local government curriculum a balance can be found between tradition and respect by retiring the band's tomahawk chops removing the native american head and asking sports reporters to refer to us as the radnor raiders not the red raiders as they do to avoid confusion with ridley vote to keep the name raider and the pride in our students christine cox 212

205hermitage drive radnor it is important to remember that choosing something as a mascot is a way of honoring not insulting it certainly that is the case with the radner raiders understanding the history and origin of our beloved mascot is extremely important to the conversation my hope is that we keep the mascot in place and use this as an opportunity to revive the story and intention of its selection zoe margulies hi my name is zoe margolies and i'm an upcoming student freshman to radnor high school as the future of the school making this change may be difficult but it is necessary the mascot and imagery we have portrayed to be the face of our school and to lead our school to victory is honestly disgusting we how should we be proud of this racist image although

206we have this figure have had this figure for a while times have changed and it's time to get with the program this will forever be an issue and do we really want to have this shameful image to be surrounded for the future children coming into the schools keeping this mascot teaches the kids of our district that it is okay to have this racist figure who we are not honoring at all like do you even know who is in our school building please keep an open mind about who we are honoring and what you are teaching and telling the future doctors lawyers and maybe even presidents mayors and political figures thanks for listening hannah north 141 barclayton road roadmap i urge the school board to change the mascot from the raiders to something that is not

207a cultural appropriation i understand how this mascot means to some how much this mascot means to some people it was a meaningful part of my childhood and adolescence as well however the memories i have of radner will hardly be tarnished or tainted if the mascot is changed it won't take away the wonderful times i had with my friends in high school or the thrill that i got when i scored a goal in field hockey what made those memories meaningful is the people that are associated with it not the mascot that is present in the background scenes of their memories the unfortunate reality is that this mascot plays into negative stereotypes associated with native americans and does not perpetuate native american culture in a way that is respectful and sensitive to the centuries of genocide this

208population endured i respectfully ask that the school board replace the mascot effective immediately and replace it with something that is a better representation of the kind of community we are we are better than this mike mccall five 420 midlet avenue wayne save the raider louisa raimondo 790 robin hood road bryn mawr please keep the radnor raider name and logo as it is will gallagher 341 yorkshire road ragner must keep the name and mascot of the raider radnor high school should continue to honor the mascot and team name and everyone in the school should be proud to be a radnor raider frank pancost 900 hillsdale road westchester pa as a former football raider my image of the mascot was of a brave and fierce warrior these are admirable and necessary attributes for succeeding in battle as

209my teammates and i saw ourselves on autumn saturday mornings i will be sad at this image which all of my teammates and friends see in a positive light is lost tessa klinowitz nine blackfriar road brynmar hello i'm tessa klimowitz a rising 11th grader at rhs thank you very much for holding this meeting tonight to listen to our concerns i take great pride in being a ratner student i am a trumpet player in the radnor band as well as a member of the guard both activities mean the world to me the sense of camaraderie is unreal like nothing i've ever felt before friday night football games kick up that excitement and school spirit even further there's nothing more exhilarating than playing our touchdown song over and over again i always want ratner to win and to

210be the best it can be i love being a part of the radnor community and i understand that many people here feel the same however i have never been proud of our mascots my father is an alum so the raider has been a part of my life for as long as i can remember even so it was something i began to view with a sense of shame i always found it disquieting that a school which prides itself on respect would have such a mascot standing on the bleachers and playing the tomahawk chop doesn't bring me the joy it once did it's much harder to feel good about something when you know your actions are hurtful to someone my weariness was only further solidified in the summer before ninth grade when i spoke with a native

211american about her struggles living in the u.s she told me about the dehumanizing and dishonor she felt when she saw her people portrayed as mascots she told me about how difficult it was seeing strange largely inaccurate representations of her people throughout her life she told me it didn't make her feel seen it made her feel invisible and insignificant after that conversation i learned everything i could about native americans experiences all over america and the fight to get rid of the map that since then i have always wanted to do something to educate others my friend and i began working towards this goal at the end of ninth grade and the results have been incredible when we first started we made a presentation for our integrated class a few students approached us afterwards and told us

212you know their eyes that was only the beginning now we have garnered over 500 signatures on our open letter so many students and members of our community want to make this change in fact during our research we learned that learned of countless others who have tried to make the changes for us as i'm sure you all know the blm news event has has certainly assisted us in raising awareness i don't think this is a bad thing i think it's a wonderful i think it's wonderful the people of america are being made aware of racial injustice we have been working on this for over a year nearly my entire time at rhs blm has helped us tremendously but we aren't attempting to take you back off of them this movement is of our own volition and

213we are striving to bring justice to our community radnor is a beautiful school and it has a very special place in my heart but the time has come for us to do better jeffrey lawrence three ironwood drive collegeville i graduated from radnor high in 1974. i was a starter on the varsity football team which had a 7-2-1 record my senior year i also ran track and played on the club lacrossing i strongly opposed the move to change the name of ratner's mascot from raider in general i do not believe such nicknames are insulting or harmful to american indians and i doubt that native americans are behind this movement although i admit i don't know who is i just learned from another alumni that in fact the choice in the mascot and associated indian logo was

214done in honor of a celebrated rounder coach who was an indian there's a lot of history pride and tradition behind the nickname and the logo changing it will help no one those who want to help minorities should do so directly and stop engaging and meaningless symbolism thank you andrew rosen 601 glenn mary road radnor pa two members of the school board author and intellectual dr deshawn stokes once said urging an organization to be inclusive is not an attack it's progress a sentiment that is particularly meaningful in debate about removing the mascot when we ask you to remove the raider we are not trying to erase our school's tradition nor we are discounting the opinions of those who want to keep the mascot however we as a school district have a have to reckon with the

215harm that using a disparaging portrayal calls as native american communities we have to view this debate as an opportunity to improve acceptance and tolerance in our schools for the 2019 ragnar township census census only 0.1 percent of random residents are american indian or alaskan native when i read this figure i asked myself how majority white township can rationalize the use of a caricature an offensive stereotype as our school's mascot there's no doubt that the raider is degrading humanizing and only perpetuates troops the native americans are primitive or uncivilized combined with studies analyzing the damaging effects that these mascots have on native american individuals and communities it quickly becomes evident that mascot should be removed recently student activists have shared testimonials from native american tribes and presented numerical data that have helped me realize the true

216impact of the raider even if the mascot did not always bother you it's hard to ignore this new evidence that is the essence of my public comment tonight i'm not here to criticize the school board for allowing rhs to use this mascot or to convince the district to save face by changing the mascot now when there is public outcry the mascot issue has been neglected for too long but this is our chance to make things right for an under representative rather demographic we can accept that we have made a mistake in using the raider as our mascot and removing the raider attuned for this mistake although although it is only one small action in changing the mascot we can help recognize and validate the entire native american community a community that has suffered an unimaginable

217pain and injustice throughout history as dr stokes explains this is an opportunity for progress in the name of racial justice and awareness please remove the racist imagery that is our mascot and all that is associated with it i want to ensure that rhs consistently reflects the values and make me proud of this community erica clark 701 mainland road new town square hello my name is erica clark and i'm a rising junior at rhs first i'd like to thank you for your hard work dedicated to reopening plans i'm hopeful that the same focus and energy will be exerted into today's necessary discussion of our writer name mascot and associate symbols i've attended a random school since kindergarten but only in recent years have i realized the extent of my shame in the rhs mascot although staying

218the mascot always made me uncomfortable it was only when i entered high school that i became truly ashamed of our school school's hypocrisy despite writer's pride in our inclusion acceptance and tolerance we are represented by stereotypical native american imagery that is printed on merch sports uniforms and around the school i also share the same right of pride but i've grown up and become more aware of the world around me i've had doubts and second thoughts a couple days ago i was giving a virtual piano lesson to a nine-year-old student from connecticut while we were working through one of our short pieces i noticed that the next song was called indian drums which was accompanied by a native american caricature with a feather headdress and stereotypical clothing prepared to tell her about the offensive imagery the

219degrading stereotype and the cultural appropriation i wanted to explain to her that the drawing of the native american overlooks many layers of culture and i definitely wanted to tell her about the history of mass genocide and discrimination against native americans since schools never teach that i knew this conversation would be important and my mind was busy finding words that nine-year-olds understand when i checked the on-screen video to make sure she could see my fingers on the piano i realized that of course i was wearing my lm shirt from the 2019 pep rally complete with raiders written all on caps on the front the irony of it all left me feeling helpless and hypocritical the term raider refers to native american tribes raiding white settlements further supporting the savage stereotype so how could i tell this

220nine-year-old that the drawing for indian drums was so wrong when my shirt spoke otherwise minor staff students and school board i hope you feel the shame our school's school should not be associated with native american imagery and it's about time that we retire the raider from c-win law at 1628 jfk boulevard i am c 1 law a 20 year resident ratner township and the father of two random high school graduates are practicing law full-time for more than 30 years i have been an adjunct lecturer of asian american studies at penn and temple while the writer's school district termination of the red raider mascot was long overdue in 13 2013 is my belief that rsd use of all red radar images and other stereotypes of native peoples should end once and for all i say this

221despite my son having random middle school and rhino high school in uniforms which prominently displayed the red raider image during the six years that he devoted to representing random schools and athletic competitions i do not think that the rauner school district ever educated him about the lenovo nation of pennsylvania or their history in this area the lenape nation has been here in eastern pennsylvania thousands of years before ratner township was ever founded they were not the raiders who attacked colonial settlers rather they were divested of this land in 1737 by provincial secretary james logan in the swindle called the whit walking purchase which forced the lenovo nation to relinquish 101 million 200 000 acres of their land based on a suspicious agreement of sale for which there was no original document and no record in

222the provincial archives based on a fraudulent document logan hired sprinters to run a path north as far as what is now jim thorpe pa even though the agreement was based on what a man called walk in a day and a half the lenape's were driven from their homes to as far west as kansas and oklahoma what the rather school district should have taught my sons was that some members of the leningrad nation remain in this area still speaking their native language i say this to point out that a missing piece of this discussion about whether to continue with the red raiders images on school buildings and paraphernalia is the viewpoint of the lenape nation of pennsylvania if the radar school district were to appropriate the images and names of any other sovereign nation would there

223not be a negotiation over royalties to be paid the final high school was on the land of a sovereign nation which was wrongfully divested will there be another negotiation about rents any conversation about the continuation of the red raider names and images for ratner school district promotions and events without the input of the lenape nation and other native peoples is illegitimate at best it is time for rauner school district of voter resources to give students the education about the lenape nation that my sons never received ali bauer 317 midland avenue wayne hello ryder school board i greatly appreciate everything you do for us every day especially during these in certain times hopefully you're all having a good summer my name is allie bauer i am a rising senior and i am part of the writer

224for reform student coalition i'm running in today to urge you to change randor's mascot the raider is not only offensive to native american groups but is also outdated in the poor representation of our modern school district please be part of this positive change and recognize that there are so many better ways to represent ratner even if the mascot is not particularly offensive to you it's important to remember all the individuals who have been hurt by it if anyone has a problem with our mascot which additional students and rather have expressed there is no reason to keep it around there are so many other great ways to cultivate school spirit and random pride let's recognize the past but reimagine our future thanks gary cohen 780 fawn hill road radnor the raider nickname existed before and independently

225of the current mask on imagery so i support keeping the nickname raiders which has strong attachment value to former students and student athletes i do believe the image of the native american mascot on the side of the school building should be removed as it may be offensive and has no direct relationship to raiders as far as the two feathers on the current ran our logo i have mixed feelings about this on the one hand if the presence of the two feathers are offensive to native americans then they probably need to be removed however given the origins of the initial tie-in to native american imagery as an honor and recognition to mr emes and toxin there are strong arguments for keeping the feathers as a continuing tribute i understand both arguments on this matter and will

226caution to make quite certain that there is offense and harm in keeping the feathers on the logo before removing them because they have sentimental and attachment value to students who see the current logo as a symbol of their time spent at rhino high school and competing for the school perhaps this is an opportunity to keep the feathers as a tribute but also combine it with education to the student body on both native american history and the honoring of mr matoxin by the student body so we promote a more diversified education experience and a deeper appreciation for the native american experience that would truly be a great legacy to further honor mr mitchum lisa d giovanni by four oak for road wayne ryder township is a proud community in vegas tribal history we are all living

227on a native american land we respect the land and we respect the tribal people who lived here each year we honor the full-blood and native american radnor teacher and coast emerson matoxen at manor middle school's end of the year award ceremony there are many lessons to be taught is cultures connecting helping writer teachers and students to connect to its own tribal culture i have resided in matter township for over 16 years my husband and i chose the town of wayne to raise our family for a few reasons one is because it reflected the small town feel of how i was raised as a young child it offered safety security and top performing public schools i loved everything about this little town and so we bought our home and raised our four children here i never

228tried to change or transform all that wayne offered i did try to erase its history i did not try to erase its history change its local traditions shame its residents or slanderous school community with offensive labeling as a matter of fact i embrace my community's traditions and respect my neighbors this is a profoundly dishonest campaign to attack the history and long-held traditions of a generous and grateful school community my question to those who oppose the native american imagery and traditions of the school was simple why did you choose to live here if you were offended by its history or disagree with the school's imagery to label ragnar school community with the offensive term racist is a divisive strategy used in a cunning way to guilt and shame students to cave to political correctness the strategy

229of offensive labeling is used without any factual evidence furthermore there has never been any scientific data presented to the radar community indicating that its public schools native american imagery negatively negatively impacted student learning or created an unequal learning environment for culturally diverse students those who pose the school's name logo and native american traditions and those who are now posting signs throughout the community with the hateful messaging of not my mascot and drop the chop i say this to you pennsylvania is a state with school choice just as you can choose your town you can choose your school there are many public charter school options in pennsylvania many are tuition free with the school tax dollars following the student you have a choice i hope everyone will choose to move forward in a positive manner recognizing

230that the school community uses its imagery tastefully and respectably without any intent to harm those living within or outside the community for mark d giovanni 5'4 oakford road wayne who taught the radnor students to hate their native american imagery i formally addressed this concern in my 2014 letter to the random school board and administration my letter addressed the guest spiegel speaker rick eckstein identified on a randor syllabus as a campaigner against native american mascots rick eckstein was given full access to classrooms to speak to students on this controversial and overtly political topic during regular instructional class time without parental notification respectfully more concerning was the district's refusal to provide a guest speaker with a counter viewpoint on this topic the district now has now produced a group of students with hatred toward their school's industry

231without any knowledge of random radar history this hatred of the school's imagery has divided the school community with increased animosity among students as evidenced by social media postings and signed petitions these petitions are signed by various stakeholders but most disturbing on the signatures of several random faculty the administration continues to demonstrate a pattern of political bias through classroom instruction and by permitting die-ins and walk-outs during the school day on rider's campus students with traditional views who embrace their imagery and adhere to a more respectful matter of conduct to voice their advocacy are made to feel like strangers in their own school when the mascot was removed michael pettitti stated the red raider name isn't changing nor will any tasteful caricatures of indians at the school be taken down he is quoted as saying the render

232name remains the logos remain the only thing that is being retired is the physical costume mascot that rarely over the past few years was present in athletic events to begin with this is not what has occurred imagery has been removed by stealth without notice to stakeholders it wasn't enough to remove the mascot it wasn't enough to remove the indian head logo it wasn't enough to remove imagery from buildings and apparel so what will be enough the school board as a neutral representative of the school community should not allow any further removal of the school's long-held traditions including its name its logo and its native american imagery as promised long ago by michael cassidy until a comprehensive fully actionable long-wage plan is implemented to educate all students on ratner's local native american history the district should

233seek partnerships with the support of regional and national native american communities to foster and increase awareness of its culture through such partnerships around our school district can strive to retain its history traditions and imagery with the support of the native american community i would greatly welcome the opportunity to assist the district in developing such an initiative from extra ayah barath 365 heather lane brimmar i'm a rising senior at ratner high school and i've been part of the writer community for 12 years every school day i see a new place for hate signed proudly displayed and i feel proud of my school's values but then i'll see the raider mascot displayed just as proudly and it breaks my heart ryder in itself is a good school i've treasured my education here and appreciate our great athletics

234department my writer is not a fantastic school by keeping the raider mascot our community sends a message that it is acceptable to be unempathetic and racist if we ignore the pain of the victims it's a shame that we disregard the genocide and harm to indigenous people in the classroom but use their rhetoric traditions as a fun activity on the football field it literally teaches children and teenagers to exploit people of color if it's convenient for them if we are to preach to our church to support one another and respect each other and we must practice it ourselves and our community and respect our neighbors indigenous people a great school means molding the minds of great kids but these kids are learning to be passive when there is a wrong in this world if we don't

235teach them teach children to be empathetic and anti-racist then they won't grow up to be strong leaders to stand up for others or give people equal chances to be heard rather is amazing on paper but can the heart of our community be as strong if its core is so rotten we shouldn't just learn about the pilgrims in elementary middle high school we should learn about the indigenous people who live before us how they aren't savagery and they aren't raiders how their culture is just different but beautiful and how they were wronged the writer also wronged them but how radnor can hopefully change that no more performative honoring let's stop depicting an entire race as caricatures and calling them raiders when they're people like you and me to teach our children to not silence the oppressed

236to not be desensitized by wrongdoings to not be passively racist there are no more excuses for racism in the 21st century we must make sure the kids from this school don't contribute to racism and society radnor impacts great minds so let's not just be a good school with great academics and athletics let's be an amazing school that has intelligent minds strong athletes and empathetic souls that can create a better society for all of us from juliana d giovanni 54 oakford road as a member of the random class of 2020 my classmates and i experienced the harsh reality of not being able to participate in school sponsored activities in person due to the coven 19 pandemic being locked down and quarantined during our senior years remaining months we were grateful we had our fall events to

237reflect upon for our senior memories our senior class motto we're all in this together truly took on a new meaning who would have thought that our fallen memories centered on ratner's long-held traditions will be the ones that we cherish the most i love my school and i love all my classmates regardless of race gender sexual orientation or viewpoint therefore i am saddened to see the divide among the student body on social media regarding the rad and raiders the labeling and hatred directed towards students with opposing viewpoints on this matter have created an unpleasant situation many students are silenced and feel uncomfortable expressing opinions on social media due to their fear of being a target not to mention that not to mention the detrimental effect it may happen their college and future professional careers although random

238supports have no place for a hate school environment the student behavior exhibited on social media are hurtful to many as a recent runner alum i feel that it is essential that more voices join the conversation if the district permits this conversation to continue therefore i recommend that the random high school administration school board identify and implement valid ways of anonymously surveying school and public opinion in random township this type of surveying will encourage a more honest discussion once we start labeling we start dividing and we are no longer a united school community if you're on the right team you get your picture in the philadelphia inquirer if you descent your reputation is destroyed i guess we really aren't in this we aren't really all in this together from colin mortensen agnew 325 pembroke avenue wayne

239i'm a proud radnor alumni and i'm very proud of the values of our community teaches in the rauner school district it's time to act on those values by removing the offensive imagery of the raider the use of native american imagery has a long history in the united states and seldom hasn't been good by having a native american logo with the team name raider we are affirming hurtful stereotypes and whitewashed history of native americans we acknowledge the term red raider was too offensive in 2013 and that was a good first step but the time is always right to do what is right and the right thing to do is change the imagery of our school and no longer be a community that proudly ties the team the term raiders native americans a group we spend centuries

240driving out of their homeland and killing their population for the sake of political and economic dominance over the western hemisphere there is no reason why we cannot still be called still be the red narrators with different imagery we can use pirates battle weathered mercenaries or really anything to do with war and fighting many sports teams have already changed our offensive imagery or shoot it from the start let's join the growing course of communities across the world and put an end to this offensive imagery it's never too late to correct a misdeed but it's always better to do it sooner rather than later we've gotten through approximately 70 of the comments of the written comments that's after hearing about 35 video comments tonight i said that we would kind of consider whether or not we wanted

241to recess the meeting or plow on you know that i i said i'd kind of revisit it i don't want to decide that right now but i i we're getting close we have about maybe 25 maybe about 30 or so comments left maybe just under 30. uh which to my record to my thinking will will finish this up shortly after 11 so um we could recess the meeting then or consider you know some board conversation or next steps at that point and i just you know want to know if we have strong feelings about that now if we're going to recess the meeting in about a half an hour or when the public comment finishes then we should let people know if we're going to plow on i'd like to give people an opportunity to

242know that we're considering uh forging ahead tonight uh and if you want to a little after 11 that's an early meeting for us yeah it does feel kind of this is this part is going along um much much much faster than uh i anticipated and i thank mr petiti and dr hand uh for handling the technology so well and i and miss gangle for also helping with the um reading of all these comments tonight so thank you both let let me um raise your hand if you're inclined to have us recess at 11. i'm just going to take a quick it's not really a vote so it's really i would just all right so so far maybe only about one person oh two all right it's not going to really be so much a vote

243if i recess the meeting i recess the meeting all right i'd like to have us continue with the comments i just wanted to kind of do a touch in because this is moving along considerably faster than i think we thought it would all right allison thanks all right so next we have ann minokaze 129 radnor avenue villanova it is well past time to change the team name a contest to rename the team might help unite the community brian winston 1057 eagle road q26 wayne do not change the name as we find the cancel culture offensive good or bad history cannot be changed radnor football is tradition that brings the alumni back together and is a cherished institution as an alum i'm proud of our school our history and who we are thank you jack triangin

244triangan 799 woodley road hello my name is jack triongan and i graduated from ratner high school in the class of 2018. i was a co-captain for our lacrosse team my senior year and accepted the leadership role as an honor to represent and lead any team under the rad narrator's name after moving into the radnor school district in 2012 i quickly realized that there was an extreme sense of pride in the community surrounding our schools and the students who continued to represent our great district in academics and athletics and everything in between after quickly buying into this high standard of excellence i soon understood the significance of the traditions radnor's alumni had fought so hard to establish at my eighth grade graduation ceremony i was honored to win the prestigious emerson chief metoxin award for radnor

245male female athlete who is in the eighth grade and who best exemplifies the ratner traditions of sportsmanship loyalty and endeavor although it is great that we honor chief metoxin with this award it is important to realize the other ways in which native americans like metoxin are remembered and honored at our schools our locals our logos and imagery have made me more aware of native american culture history and tradition i hope that through these conversations we can improve the education of native americans in our schools as well as teaching our students about our school's important history after finally grasping the significance of the award i received several years ago i want to ask our school board is simply erasing our name and logos is the best way to continue to honor chief patoxin his time at

246radnor and the recognition our logo has created throughout our community while i do agree removing the mascot and native american figure are appropriate decisions i hope we can respect our history and spread awareness as to the reason we use the feathers as our ratner logo track trachtenberg 230 south wayne avenue wayne pa hello my name is track i use they them pronouns and i am an alum of the radnor high school class of 2013. i went to rtsc schools from 4th through 12th grades and as with so many alums i know this school system shapes me in so many ways i still interact with radnor and mascot on a near daily basis from the sports team clothes i still own to conversations with my younger brother who just graduated this spring honestly when i say

247the school system shaped me in so many ways not all of it is good i built friendships and grew intellectually and had a few teachers who made a huge impact on me but when i left radnor i also realized how much i still had to learn my language my ignorance and the images of the mascot on my clothes were directly harmful to new classmates and potential friends i regret the harm cause there and i absolutely take responsibility for some of what i did not know but i also blame our school system if bradner wishes to produce graduates who will contribute positively to our society then we have responsibility not to not keep our students in symbols of white supremacy and to educate them in essential issues racism included i wish i had that i hadn't

248worn the mascot or participated in the chop cheer for as long as i did i wish that i hadn't worn the mascot around native classmates who who then had to deal with yet another dehumanizing image of their academ in their academic setting i no longer own any clothes with the raider image on them but the responsibility shouldn't be only on me radnor you have a chance to do the right thing and set a better example by your students please please do so abigail hillman 505 west beach tree lane i am thrilled that the school board is considering this long overdue reform and i applaud the students who have spearheaded the process the red raider mascot and its manifestation in the caricature on the side of radnor high school is a same as a shame is

249a shameful vestige of white supremacy and to call it anything else is to perpetuate the lies we tell ourselves that these images and stereotypes define our native people is indisputable that they cause lasting and permanent harm to native youth as well documented in social science research what we talk about less often is the damage our silent condemnation of this image and name have done to the predominantly white population of ratner in his autobiography frederick douglass not only wrote eloquently about the ways that slavery damaged the enslaved but also about its devastating effects on white and flavors the radnor raider image perpetuates the tacit and unspoken understanding that there is a racial hierarchy with whites at the top this is not a lesson we want to be teaching our children i thank the school board members

250of advance for taking this historic if painfully long overdue step to remove this horrific symbol and allow students to choose a mascot and logo that reflect the energy passion and determination of radnor's sports team lisa cohn 230 south lane avenue wayne i am the parent of two ratner alums we have been part of this community since 2004. i want the mass got changed because i want rainer to be an inclusive community where everyone feels welcome with all their differences the mascot we have now is offensive to native americans and therefore offensive to all of us please immediately abandon the raider massa even if we don't have a final solution we can interim just walk away like the football team recently did now is the time to make substantive substantive and symbolic changes this may seem

251little but it's not little to everyone and therefore it needs to be important for everyone thank you casey cullen 215 cornell drive i would like to know which native american initiated this protest against radnor high school mascot or if this is another case of cancelled culture i would be honored if the school created a mascot based on my ethnic background people may mask us after strength not weaknesses you can take every single mascot and find something offensive or negative about it jenna zenosi 219 sugartown road apartment r 203 wayne as an alumni of rhs 2019 and as a former member of the band who played at each football game friday nights and represented radnor at different schools and on trips the amount of ignorance displayed by our logo and team name consistently made me feel

252ashamed to be part of our school community it has not only discouraged me in terms of showing school spirit but also in being proud of my school and community the lack of discussion the lack of discussion around it both in school slash township leaders and with structured conversations with students is the embodiment of privilege especially in the mainline area and silences the struggles of native americans while encouraging ignorance between a lightly oh i'm sorry between a largely white and privileged student body immediately change the name the logo and enforce strict history learning about native americans and the issues of colonization in all history classes before having opened discussions and classes students must first be educated in non-whitewashed history lessons yearly and after changing the logo and name the reasons why and ratner's past regarding this

253issue will not be ignored talk about why radnor was wrong and why it was fixed yearly whether in history classes or in mandatory assemblies thank you jennifer carter 205 st davis court wayne my boys have always been proud to be radder raiders after learning the history of the raider name i believe that our community needs to continue to celebrate emerson chief metoxin and keep the raider name and logo emerson served rtsc for many years and was proud of his native american heritage preserving the raider name and logo in his honor embodies the competitive spirit and positive impact he had on our students julia morrison 221 bradner street road hello my name is julia morrison and i am a rising junior at radnor high school i have been in radisson's kindergarten and even from a young

254age the mascot did not seem right to me bradner prides itself as a no place for hate school and yet our very mascot is a derogatory caricature of native americans community members defend this by saying that we are honoring native americans and that the mascot is a symbol of pride but a simple mascot should not be why we are proud of radnor it should be because of the students faculty and families saying that the mascot is necessary because it shows our pride makes it seem as though those achievements are due to a mascot rather than hard work and talent changing the name of our school teams will not change that we have a winning streak against lm or diminish our accomplishments we can be proud without being harmful as i said before i have been

255in radner schools my entire life my grandfather grew up and went to these schools 800 years ago he was immensely proud of radnor always having time to tell a story about a radnor lm game or football practice he could drive down any street in radnor and tell you at least five people who lived there students and teachers alike but when he was referring to radnor he said radnor radner did this radnor did that never the raiders did this the writers did that our community is so much bigger than a mascot we are radnor we would be doing the community a disservice if we continue to use the current mascot thank you for your time from sophia morrison 221 miranda street road hello my name is sophia morrison i am a rising freshman at rhs i

256would like to use my time to read out the names of current rauner students who are in support of change ellie davis ann griffin rhys hillman audrey mcauley's becca's a jack gray south florence south nora graves tesla kilmowitz cynthia mazz isabella lowe julia morrison thomas barnhart sophie wallace tovash shao sai middle sarah t'shall nia anad ali bauer leaton dixon margot flanagan debbie armstrong jamie mcrae justin norian emmett hillman lenny hartman sophia jorales cassandra ramirez gabby heberling ashu anushka hicks sophia juvilier castilla hobart emily pompolio maya casius miriam dixon annika jaswal ellie reinhard katie vader isabella deputy katie lorenz suman lee christina sue olivia barker erica clark ava gummel eddie mckenzie raw ganesh ganeshan noor kaplan samantha rosen grace hicks ashna luthra shanta hong kong sidney goldenberg amasha wikimorahi anna lyons audrey kuhn patrick breck maya

257manzor bella barnaby sarah anderson anthony evanson achika chuhan vivian hasserly moana grasso lucy chrisculo hyman oh kara lee anna cohen emilia la fujad elizabeth toscano george johannes henderson lauren mayer betsy bower olive richter kelsey wakamaya hovind voskatron andrew rosen jamie barrett olivia diandovio lola wilton chloe sukowski tuttlin whitmer lizzie herschler carolyn murray hayden eleanor adams rory harper sabina arisso james mcgovern trisha prieta hashi aideen oliver avery seattle samuel chaninson benji lowe jason t noel kuhn megan moyer stella huang ryan mossavitz anya chen audrey needlin moen lee heather hughes the students want change thank you from julian castelleja good evening my name is julian castaleja and i've attended renter township schools are 204 wayne west wayne avenue and i've attended random township school since elementary school and graduated from reiner high school in 2018 i'm now

258attending our sinus college my family makes up the almost non-existent native american population in ratner we are part of the cherokee nation of oklahoma where my mom was born and who i get my native american roots from my family and i have had deep discussions about the rad narrator and we have all come to the agreement that we enjoy the representation throughout the country there's little to no native american representation and as time goes on it seems as though non-native american people are making decisions for us to remove certain imagery recently the native american was removed from the lando lakes logo because non-native americans wanted it gone thinking they were doing us a favor in reality they removed one of the few symbols still honoring native americans now we've heard the same thing is happening

259to the rad narrator we love having the vote of the chip for something that we actually have a personal connection to which is something we have never been able to do and probably will never be able to do again i think it'd be better to educate future students more about native american history and culture and about the gross betrayal trail that's an understatement of the us government in addition to this students should be educated on the actual meaning of our name and mascot that the raider is not directly referring to native americans that the name raider came years before the native american imagery and later the student body voted to have a native american with the intention of honoring honoring emerson chief of toxin i understand that because i'm not an affluent white person my

260voice means a little less in the town of radnor but as a native american i hope you hear my plea to keep the native american representation alive in ratner if you really feel the term raider is racist and have to get rid of it i beg you to keep the native american representation i suggest the name of chiefs this is much more honor in the name and still pays respect to mr mctoxin to clarify i'm asking the board to keep the name and logo as it is however if there has to be a change that a rad narrator then only be that to the name and to keep all other native american representation thank you for your time from bill diagnostino 233 cala calandre avenue brimar thank you school board for taking up this important

261issue it's imperative that even during this difficult time of school closures and reopening you are facing this painful issue my family is proud to live in radnor it's a beautiful place with wonderful schools with amazing teachers and coaches and administrators we all love but that doesn't mean we can ignore the wrongs of the past we live on land stolen from the lenape tribe the continuing racial segregation of our school is a product of decades of injustice it will be easy to ignore these wrongs but my pride for our town has never been stronger students who are working to make our town more perfect speaking up against injustice as one wrote recently in the rantaray when we recognize a mistake a lapse of judgment we must work diligently to remedy it respect and responsibility our traits

262rather prides itself on so are we go are we to ignore the irony every friday in the fall please learn from a reflective courage of these students and show us the school board that we can be proud of thank you sophie samaha 443 ivaray road the villanova to me the fact that there has been so much backlash to change in the raid or mascot is a sign that the radder school system has truly failed to teach students about the history of this land and the people who resided here first while that failing is not going to be solved by the removal of the mascot having native imagery represent our school does not help ratner students the majority of whom are white learn about racism it is clear to me from the comments section of the

263writer for reform instagram page and from my experience as a student in radnor the writer needs to drastically improve when it comes to anti-racist education which involves having a comprehensive curriculum about indigenous people as they currently live and how to contribute to their fight for justice i was lucky enough during my time in ranner as an asian-american student to only experience racism in the form of microaggressions but i know other students of color who had worse experiences i love to see renner become a safer place for all its students and changing the mascot is one step towards that goal south 412 st davis avenue my name is grace south i'm i'm a rising senior at ratner i'm part of runner for reform and i've brought up this concern with the high school as early as

264the fall of last year as you know the red of the random red raiders was removed with the intention of reducing the offense in the pheasant mascot and preserving random tradition in history however by just doing a quick google search of ragna red raider multiple websites announced radar sports teams with the mascot of the red raider some even from this year reiner high school will always be associated consider the red raider while we are represented by the current native american imagery both elements of the mascot even without the word red teach harmful stereotypes of the tribe whom many believe we are honoring the mascot disrespects much of the native american population today and forgets that there are people who still face prejudice and racism it would be great to trust that students will do their

265own research as a result of knowing our mascot and we forget that many students won't and will only have the stereotypes portrayed by the mascot to remember eleni lenovo let it be trombone if ryanair changes the mascot and works towards educating the student body regarding the history of the london lenape tribe we can teach and honor the bravery of this tribe in a respectful manner forgetting history is ignoring the ignorance that fueled the creation of our mascot as well as leaving the tribe in our history and around our curriculum in the last 10 years we have witnessed many high school and sports teams remove their heart from mascots most recently the washington redskins ran into one of the best public schools in the state should do the same and be an example of a district

266who learns from racism and prejudice kate sanderson 2-2 oak for the road coming to live in ratner area several years ago i see the rad narrator's name imagery as an acronym an acronym it makes me cringe every time i see it i'm ashamed that my children are asked to cheer for this do the chop and display these images i don't want ratner kids ending up as the poster surgeon on the internet and national media for institutions perpetuating racist names and imagery please move forward from this hour and adopt a name and imagery we can be we can proudly cheer for ben johnson 219 pembroke avenue i'm a reiner high graduate can we find some happy medium the random raider symbol is offensive let's come up with an alternative similar to the oakland raider not sure

267why we are not spending as much time and energy in getting our kids back to school from corinne limaterre and 116 ben lowell road and montgomery avenue grimmar i write and support retiring the writer's name and all associated native american imagery as a random alumni i do not feel that they best represent our beloved school names and symbols based on native american cultural references are widely regarded as racist they are based on stereotype and exist independent of any real education about native american life they are repudiated by the very groups they allegedly honor including the national indian education association sea resolution 213-07 support for elimination of race-based native logos mascots and names on changethemascot.org but it's more than that retiring the raider will send a very clear message that racism in any form will not

268be tolerated please this honorary core values by creating a great new logo and team name one that future generations can be proud of thank you class of 1985. alicia alfonso 507 west beach tree lane my name is lisa fonzo and i'm currently a random resident a teacher in rhs and a parent of two alumni only to support the writer reform to retire the radar mascot from our schools when we moved here 16 years ago i was surprised our school mascot had the name of raiders in the image of the native american in our fields the word raider brought to mind the negative images associated with the native americans being portrayed as violent and savages a nation that will pillage and slaughter others i was also shocked when in our football games the school band played

269the atomic talk chop song again another negative image perhaps due to their hollywood depiction the native american tomahawks were used to do scalping we need to remove this imagery that perpetuates native stereotypes of the underserved native americans as a person of color and a teacher of radder i would like to i'd like rtsd to retire the name ragnar is community values respect and diversity we need to embrace it by no longer using the imagery of the raider and the tomahawk we need to be a community that embraces and respects every member of our community we are rather proud but not at the expense of other people's pains and struggles from kathy steinway six woods birth court my children are in elementary school in ratner and look forward to correcting the course for current hs students

270and my future ratner hs students making the high school experience free of discriminatory terminology and majoring actions the chop and accompany the rad and raiders please continue to move forward to make changes we can all be proud of hashem gummin 167 sprawl road in radnor i've experienced racism and i understand that it's real and it's an issue however to say that the mascot and name is racist is a very is very small in comparison to the bullying and racism that takes place in our schools i'm not saying that i didn't have friends or didn't have a phenomenal four years at radnor but i feel that ratner should tackle the issues that reside in our school also there is a ton of history that goes into our name that is positive and enforces why we were

271named the raiders in the first place all in all we can take a few compromises as i've been speaking to many alumni saying that the indian head on the side of prevost can be removed however changing the name completely and removing everything so many people hold near and dear would require way too much effort in a time where so much is uncertain removing the name would require changing raider road redoing the floors just a year after it was done erasing years of history and work that's been done with this name and having to change the fields and changing all the school uniforms to suffice the name change in such strange and uncertain times changing the name would cause unnecessary commotion and just add another level of tension on a school board that has so much

272on their hands with the reopening already caitlyn roltgen 421 was beech tree lane wayne i believe that the radnor raider is racist racist and we should not keep it you say it's your job to be inclusive and caring but you have something degrading and racist as your mascot keeping it wouldn't preserve anything about the history of our school it will just allow people to continue being racist rachel scarlet low please accept this public comment as support to change throughout their mascot my support to remove the mascot is informed by my expertise in diversity education as a professor of education i teach undergraduate and graduate courses on diversity inclusion social justice and equity i chair my department's diversity equity and inclusion committee nationally i work on committees with educators and researchers who study the impact of

273misrepresentation and bias on communities and individuals this includes tribally enrolled members who reject mascots because they perpetuate harmful stereotypes that might negatively affect all native american students in my comment i address criticism that ratner for reform has received on its instagram page as i suspect these critiques will be voiced tonight the criticism can be grouped as follows you aren't native american so you can't speak for native americans radner for reform provided documentation for native americans who articulated why these mascots are deeply problematic they shared empirical evidence of the harm to wide-ranging groups of students furthermore they effectively argue that the mascot contradicts the district's mission vision and value statements as such the mascot is a barrier to achieving the goals outlined in these statements the name is a way to honor the leni lenape from

274this region neither the image nor the term reflects the lenape's experiences lenape people were not counseled during the selection or design of the mascot to honor the lenape school curriculum should include their histories and contemporary realities moreover the definition of raider is pejorative a person who attacks business premises in order to steal the name raider isn't one to which we wish our students to aspire if we truly value and respect the history of the lenape we must do better than an a historical stereotype image and team name that connotes violence in radnor more widely depictions of native americans focus on the white man conquering the savage at the wayne post office a painting depicts anthony wayne standing nearly atop a dead native american this silent portrayal of a non-white body perpetuates a harmful dehumanizing narrative

275note a replica of the painting is at the end of this message but may not be suitable for all i have no counter narrative to suggest we have a more thoughtful or honorable perspective of the lenape finally these critics demonstrate that our district and families have work to do to challenge racist misogynistic and bullying discourses it is shocking to learn how overtly bigoted students and ratners are while i know rtsc does not condone racism silence and responding to those using bigoted language would success would suggest that the district does in fact condone this kind of speech to close i thank the students of ratner for reform they represent the work of teachers and staff who created learning environments that welcome critical thinking care for others and resilience they are the best of radnor for their

276careful research thoughtful and kind approach and perseverance even when faced with critical and abusive feedback these young people are a testament to the district this is a moment for radnor to follow their example please remove the raider name and mascot george hopson dear school board members members my name is george hopson and i am a four former student class of 1963 athlete educator and coach in the radnor township school district i retired in 2003 after 36 great years the history of my family attending render schools goes back to my father my brother my sister my own four children and five grandchildren i have deep concern about the possible elimination of the word raider as it has been a part of a long history of our outstanding schools i wrote these same sentiments on facebook concerning

277my feelings and received well over 200 responses between facebook and phone calls supporting my feelings these responses included former and current parents students and players i coached over the years i wish to mention that the word raider has no negative implications on native americans my proposal is to replace the current logo with the r since our school colors are maroon and white a fancy maroon r encircled in white with a maroon band on the outside of the circle would be the new logo the r could be designed by our talented art students and ultimately approved by the student body administration and school board in summation my proposal is to remain is to retain the name raider with the logo r our school would be known as the radnor maroon raiders this to me would be

278a fitting compromise thank you for your time and attention jerusha connor thank you for holding this special meeting and for engaging so thoughtfully with the students of radnor iv reform at a time of profound reckoning for our country it is encouraging to see ratner leaning into conversations about the ways in which our institutions sometimes unknowingly perpetuate oppression and injustice the moderate the modeling you do at this moment of critique when ratner is called on by its students to do more to uphold its values of equity and inclusion will serve as a powerful example to all students and families in the district this is a chance to demonstrate unlearning that is rethinking taken for granted practices that unintentionally cause harm and contribute to the marginalization of a group of people for example in the wake of

279these conversations i have unlearned my use of such phrases as bury the hatchet hold down the fort and on the warpath which represent micro aggressions against indigenous people and which i used unthinkingly this is also an opportunity to teach students about how to affect institutional change my research with student activists shows that not only the student activists themselves but also their peers will refine their theories of change based on how you respond these theories of change have already been influenced by watching the protests this summer over the killings of george floyd brianna taylor raychar brooks and others and the important conversations in some cases significant policy shifts these protests have engendered including reinvestment and community services and the rise of police free schools your response to the call to change radnor's mascot can set the

280stage for a youth adult partnership which research shows to be a highly effective means of achieving sustainable equity oriented school reform or can set into motion and escalation if my research tells me anything about student activists it's that they have a plan b and it will involve tactics that make you more uncomfortable than you may already feel tonight this generation has picked up the torch from the late congressman john lewis and they are proud to honor his legacy of good trouble so you have an opportunity tonight to position ratner as the counter example to nashamini whose poor handling of this issue has forever tarnished that district's reputation i encourage you to embrace this moment to model constructive dialogue demonstrate responsiveness and teach all students how equity-based institutional change can be accomplished i want to close

281by commending the students of radnorford reform for their careful research their incisive arguments their constructed solutions and their passionate commitment when you face pushback it is a sign that you have hit on something significant i encourage you to keep at it because the greatest social changes in u.s society from workers rights to women's rights to civil rights have been due to the leadership of young people thank you for leading the way here elaine wall please drop the name raiders and any images associated with it sentimentally will get us nowhere i'm sorry sentimentality will get us nowhere now it is the top now is the time to improve things going forward and it's signed elaine wall barrett carr rachel har rhs class of 2017 and michael harr rhs class of 2020. alisa mcclatchy i am a

282four former raider a daughter of a raider a mom of two raiders a sister of raiders and an aunt of raiders i have always felt fortunate to live in an area like radnor and to receive the education that i did i will keep this short and sweet as i know you have bombarded with opinions regarding this topic the fact is there is absolutely nothing wrong or offensive about the term reader so it is perplexing to me why there's even a discussion to change the name in a day and age where people can literally find the smallest thing in demon offensive i am personally offended that more substantial topics aren't given the time and attention they deserve because people decide to drum up a problem when there is not one we have suicide as the second

283leading cause of death among adolescents and numbers have continued to rise we have an opioid epidemic and an increasing number of adolescents using illicit drugs we have anxiety and depression increasingly suffocating our youth and this is what we are focusing on the term raider which i am sure by now you have all looked up you have all looked at the definition of it is absolute nonsense furthermore this should not be something that is left to the school board to decide this is something that should be decided by ratner alumni and current students let's encourage our students to focus on their mental well-being and things that will improve their quality of life instead of teaching them to find offense and faults to everything thank you for your time and energy stay well stan lindgren 27 northwoods

284road ratner i am a radner citizen parent of an rhs graduate and rms student supporter of rhs rhs athletics and an active member of the community over the past 15 years first i want to thank the administration and school board for your tireless efforts to ensure that our children receive the excellent education that ratner has come to know and expect you have done a yeoman's job ensuring high standards that have been maintained throughout unprecedented trials unlike other years when the end of the school year signal to pause you work seriously to prepare for another unconventional and unpredictable year the community glimpsed your dedication during recent school board meetings lasting more than six hours each that is a small portion of the time you had given but we all know that the board and administration needs

285to remain laser focused on implementing monitoring and adjusting the approved plan in the coming weeks managing the logistics of the plan will be challenging and there is the ever-present possibility that changing guidelines could further adjustments athletics and extracurricular activities remain to be addressed best execution of the 2021 school year depends on a focused and unified board administration staff students and parents taking up an issue as divisive as the radner raider name during this time risks diverting attention from the primary reason you are assembled stewardess stewardship of one of the country's finest public school systems while i don't believe this is the time for the board to address this issue i recognize changing the raider name and removing native american symbol symbolism is being pushed by a segment of our community i disagree with the interpretation

286of the name and imagery i think the indomitable independent and in in the fabricable spirit of native americans provide an exemplary model for radnor athletes and students in pursuit of excellence it should be embraced celebrated and used as a vessel to help our students understand and honor north america's indigenous people there are prominent examples of this approach fsu has the support of the seminal nation the chicago blackhawks have a cooperative relationship with native american groups and the atlanta braves likewise work with tribal nations while radner for reform cites certain activists and scholars i am not convinced that they are a representative of the native american people in addition to the aforementioned cooperation surveys such as the one conducted by the washington post in 2016 indicating 90 percent of native americans were not offended by the

287redskins name are not supportive of the notion of a majority being offended it is my observation that tribes are more are most concerned with the united states honoring treaty's provision of quality health care through the indian health service improving educational opportunities fostering economic development on tribal lands providing employment for members and protecting the environment i believe those goals are furthered by a citizenry a citizen tree that honors indigenous peoples changing the rad narrator name and removing native american symbology will be yet another indignity and drive the first americans further from our consciousness i urge the board to consider our students and particularly student athletes from discussing this topic in the midst of the greatest educational crisis in our history when our young people's routines are in turmoil and they feel disconnected with their school and

288friends we should not be voicing another traumatic change on them if the board must consider a name change any action should be deferred until there is stability in the scheduling curriculum i don't want anyone's attention diverted from what our tax dollars are supporting providing the finest public education in pennsylvania patricia booker the purpose of a school mascot is to create that sense of belonging student's grade it helps them feel like a part of something bigger unites them as one bonds them and creates a sense of belonging it can create lifetime loyal supporters for your school and is recognizable to others a mascot represents the school's team as strong brave tenacious and united i remain firm in my belief that the radnor raider represents all of these traits and does so with the utmost respect you

289have to ask yourself why would a community select mascot to represent them if they didn't respect it they wouldn't in 2013 when the school board last visited the request by a few to stop calling ourselves survivor raiders we agreed that the symbolism of the large-headed cartoon-like mascot running up and down the sidelines was not appropriate and agreed it should be retired however we recognize the importance of the raider as the connection to our history our culture and its importance to our student body and community because of it because it united us i ask you to consider why do people think having an american indian as your school spirit is racist who is the arbitrator of what is racist racist and what is not perhaps those calling it racist have their own bias their own difficulty

290separating what is racist from what is not perhaps it's best to say racist is as racist does i fully disagree with the notion that the radnor raider is disrespectful it honors the strength loyalty and tenacity of the american indian and unites us we are a proud raider nation and that is all susan you're muted thank you did any comments come in because i didn't see miss booker's comments on the list that i that you sent us so i just didn't know if any more came in today or tonight uh we actually had in our um our rules for the meeting that we will be receiving comments up to the start so we actually specified that we would not be receiving them during the meeting no i understand that okay um all right so it is

291basically at 11 o'clock a little bit after 11. um you know we we have a couple of different decision trees here to make to recess the meeting and go no further to have some kind of discussion or conversation which could have a set end time or not if we're going to recess the meeting we'll have to reconvene it at another time i don't know if mr batchelor was able to identify a time to reconvene this meeting and what recessing and reconvening means uh just so everybody's clear and mr petite just kind of alluded to it is that we've we have accepted all the public comment on this topic that we will be ex you know that will be read publicly that you know that it's it's done we're just gonna you know so there would

292be no more opportunity for anyone in the public to submit additional comment to be read at this meeting and i just want to make sure everybody's clear on that i think we you know we talked about about that at a different point um why don't we spend just a couple of minutes trying i'm just looking at the clock um trying to figure out where people's heads are in terms of uh forging ahead we could forge ahead with it with it with a hard stop um i know that when we talked about this or at the beginning of the meeting we you know doing the math of what three minutes of comment for 130 or 40 comments meant this could have gone until two o'clock in the morning which is the reason that we kind of

293contemplated potentially doing a recess uh it's actually fabulous that we were able to get through four hours or just under four hours of public comment um and again i thank ms gangle and mr pettitti and dr hand for that uh technological wonder uh so if anybody wants to jump in real quick with a thought on that you know we can we can spend a couple of minutes figuring out next steps which is actually all that we said we would be doing tonight we we said we would hear public comment and then determine next steps does any would anyone like to jump in thanks thanks mr stern i'm prepared to start some discussion now and see if it leads to something and if and if it looks like we realize after some discussion that we need

294a lot more time we can recess but if it's possible to come to some resolution then we may be close to that i don't know one way or the other okay i would just like to say if it's gonna take a long time to discuss this i i will make a move to table the discussion because i don't want to keep the administrators here late tonight we're already going to have a significant meeting on thursday i'd like to be done with the public comment and and vote on this but if it's going to take a long time i don't want to do it tonight got it all righty does anybody have strong feelings uh one way or the other i i concur with um with sarah i'm just worried that that if this is going

295to i'm unclear what we want i i guess i need a discussion around what our next steps are well that's yeah that's what pretty much what i was saying so so here's the thing here's as i see it and if anybody else sees another option by all means jump in we've accepted public comment on this that's what we said we would do we wanted to hear it um and we could very easily call it a night and and take no action whatsoever and all we've done is what we said we were going to do was was hear the publics um hear the public's feelings about this situation we're actually not obliged to do anything we we on the other end of that extreme we could take all the action that there that's been requested of

296us remove all the native imagery native american imagery and change the name um those are really pretty much the two extremes of what we could do and it's not for me to choose or to decide what we should do the next you know but possible next steps are to discuss those two ends of the spectrum or um say that we are going to recess the meeting now and take up that conversation at a at a reconvened meeting and i it's not really very clear to me um why it's not clear to me that this conversation has to be a long or a short meet a short conversation i mean maybe based on our last few meetings the presumption is that if we're going to discuss something it's going to be a long meeting that's the

297part i feel about about with regards to the administration is another long meeting there's there's value in forging ahead and if there's something that we would like to take action on tonight you know do that or to have a conversation and put a hard stop to when we're going to stop talking tonight or to reconvene the meeting and say that we're going to reconvene it for a set period of time i mean we don't we don't have to have things be open-ended to the ex to the concerns i've been hearing about a long meeting and a late night and board sleepovers nothing says this has to be a long conversation one way or the other regardless of whether whether we take action or don't take action and i'm the one and i'm the one who

298jokes all about the long meetings and uh so i i you know we've had long meetings because we've had very thoughtful meetings with a lot of i think more discussion and community and complete the late night of the administrators factor into whether we continue matter of fact we gave uh most just we gave the majority of the administrators off tonight i was very unsuccessful trying to convince mrs kemp gist even um but as as the high school principal she wanted to be here tonight and i commend her for that we obviously needed dr hand and mr petiti and mrs angle but the other administrators we have given the night off because they have been so busy and what they've been focused on uh so please don't let that be a factor in tonight um uh

299you know we're we're here to have a discussion we're here to support that whichever direction it goes tonight susan can you hear me yes oh hey um greetings from the pennsylvania turnpike um i am i'm on route on a family visit but i've been following the whole meeting um i just had a quick piece of uh feedback for for this topic um i am of the opinion that um that this topic deserves some substantial conversation at a time when all of us are a little fresher um and when we have had some time to digest the comments um you know it doesn't have to be a four-hour meeting where we're um where each of us are providing uh long comment but i do think that uh it would serve us and the community well to

300have a substantial conversation um at another time yeah so my concern andrew is we've sat through now over four hours of public comment they mirror all the emails over 100 emails i think that we've all gotten over the last few weeks and they fall into by my estimation three camps keep the raider name and the mascot and imagery get rid of the raider name the mascot and the imagery or keep the raider name but get rid of the mascot right they all fall in those three camps and if we push this to another meeting my impression is that by board policy we have to take comment again and i'm not saying there's no value in the public comment there certainly is but i haven't seen in the hundreds of comments that we've gotten anything other

301than those three options so i'm not sure there's a lot more valuable conversations i see the point and that and that's why that's why i originally put out the idea that we could put all of the comments in writing and put them up publicly and then choose a sample of the comments tonight so that we wouldn't be wrapping up at 11 o'clock we could have been wrapping up at 8 30 or 9. in which case i would i would favor a substantial conversation right now but actually that's not the case so i don't think that's why now that we're here now that we're here this late i think that it is better to set this aside for another time it doesn't have to be multiple hours or whatever um but it should be a time

302when we've had time to digest the public's comment and to reflect on this i've been getting the same emails that you have so don't you know imply that i haven't been there guys hang on a second i do want to clarify something i when i said that we had several options and i said one option is that we do nothing that we take no action just let me be clear that is the option of keeping the name and keeping the imagery that's what it means to take no action okay just be clear to everybody but i also want to say i'm very specific if if we are not going to continue tonight i'm going to recess the meeting i'm not going to adjourn it and then i'm going to reconvene for another time the public

303comment on this topic is is we've accepted a public comment on this topic that we've ex that we've accepted now people might still send emails and i suspect that they will continue to send us emails until uh until such time as we reconvene and have whatever conversation we're going to have but that's the reason that i was very specific about saying recess okay that's fine i just don't i don't want to have another four-hour meeting before we start talking about it no one does yeah let's go i'll agree on that i i think i'm not hearing enough appetite to plow on uh at least not in a substantial way but i would yeah i but i don't i don't want to translate recessing to we can have another you know that we need to have

304another long conversation about this so so mr christopher i think you're on the phone as i indicated four hours ago this was certainly the option that i put out there and um i think i even quoted my mother we were going to play it by ear so if i recess the meeting right now we would then announce on the website that we can the date for reconvening because we i don't think we have a date set right now do we mr batchelor we we don't have a date but certainly we could discuss that right now um i believe you know um tuesdays are not going to work because we have other board meetings and other commitments coming up for tuesdays that's our traditional board time and with school reopening and other discussions that need to

305happen we do have a board meeting we do you know this thursday night uh if we it really depends the discussion is how soon do we want to reconvene this meeting uh if we want to reconvene this meeting within the next two weeks i believe we have a two town hall discussion two town or community discussions on the 13th and 20th mr pettitti for um where we're looking at uh for the uh accessibility and wellness project yes so that's the 20th so don't rule out those two but that would leave open um you know knowing that i think they're not thinking knowing that we have already booked the next two tuesdays for board meetings that we're going to be using so we can't use it for this this special topic uh we could look at

306wednesdays august 12th or august 19th if we wanted to do it within the next two weeks or did we want to push it beyond um you know the the end of this month all right well we're gonna have to take a look at that and um and we will have to announce the reconvening the reconvening date but we are recessing the meeting for now but i do want to say um the the one caveat about uh being done with public comment is i've received several emails tonight uh from people who insist that they sent in their public comment in the allotted time frame so so we are gonna have to ask dr hand and mr petiti to just double check our technology and make sure that no one who submitted comments um within the time

307frame that we listed publicly uh that they were inadvertently you know lost or or left off the list uh just in in fairness to the process so that is the only public comment that would maybe perhaps be um you know entered into a reconvened meeting okay so mr christopher i just recessed the meeting is that all yeah yeah that's all that we need to do at this point in time and then the the meeting will pick up uh when the date's determined great all right so then we are in recess goodnight everyone and thank you all and and thank you to the public for listening and submitting your comments and bearing with us you're here thank you good night