Petoskey Public schools will phase out the use of its Native American logo.
The Petoskey school board on Thursday unanimously voted to remove the logo from district use.
Since 2003, the Michigan Department of Education has urged public schools to eliminate the use of American Indian mascots, imagery, or logos.
Chris Parker is the Superintendent of Petoskey Public Schools. He said the decision came after consultation with the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians.
“The message from that group was fairly uniform and consistent that the change needed to be made,” he said. “The board had some good discussion and ultimately decided that was the right thing to do at this time.”
Parker said the last time the school board discussed the issue was in 2017.
The image will be slowly phased out of use. Larger projects, like removing imagery from trailers or the basketball floor, will take longer to complete.
“Anything we order new won’t have that image on it. And then larger projects like trailers or things like the basketball floor we’ll just have to determine when we’ll do that in light of our renovation and maintenance schedule.”
To replace the logo, Parker said the schools will just use block letter “P” for Petoskey.
The Little Traverse Bay Bands did not respond to our request for comment.