“It started with team spirit,” Athletic Director Pete Rittenberg said. “The girls volleyball team was in the playoffs and they wore Native American headdresses before the game. Some people in the school found it offensive. It started a conversation and many school committee meetings were held to reach the final agreement of keeping the warrior, but losing the Native American connotation.”
The arrow and feather school logo was banned around seven years ago and was replaced by a three letter design. Many students, however, dislike the current logo and recently there has been a surge to change it.
Junior Will Notelovitz, a member of student council, has been trying to change the logo for the last three years. He said that a new logo may be chosen soon.
“I’m kind of on this crusade of changing the logo,” Notelovitz said. “People have been casually submitting logos to me, but I haven’t really assembled an official contest yet. Within a month I’ll have a contest going.”
Notelovitz plans on setting up a student-made logo contest with school-wide voting. He is trying to make sure that all students will get a chance to have their voice heard, whether through a logo submission or through a vote. He will plan through the student council.
“People submit their ideas,” Notelovitz said. “Let’s say we get 50 submissions. Student council narrows it down to five or three, depending on how good they are. Then kids can vote on those through Canvas.”
Besides Notelovitz and the student council, other student groups are pushing for a new logo.
The Superfans have been trying to get a new logo for the last two years, but have not had much success.
“Last year the Superfans tried making a public contest, but nothing happened,” Michael Normant, the adviser of the Superfans, said.
According to Normant, there were not enough satisfactory submissions to have a diverse contest for the students to vote on.
“The open submission contest idea doesn’t really work,” Normant said. “What we need to do is to have either a professional graphic designer or at least someone who knows what they are doing to come up with a couple of designs. Then we put them up to a vote.”
Some teams have taken the logo into their own hands, creating a recognized but unofficial logo for the team.
“The logo most prominently in use right now is the one the soccer program developed,” Rittenberg said. “It’s a shield with an 1873 woven into it and it also uses the BHS insignia in it.”
However, not all sports teams have gone through the school with their ideas, and some of them are not allowed.
“We have had a couple of spear and feather flare ups this year and this doesn’t happen every year,” Rittenberg said. “But we’ve already had two this fall that I’m aware of.”
These unapproved spear and feather logos go against the agreement that was made seven years ago.
“They simply can’t be worn in the school,” Rittenberg said. “Although the school and the athletic department aren’t paying for it, they look like something that is connected to us. It all comes back to the agreement we made. This is a violation and can’t be tolerated.”
Rittenberg’s solution is to get a new approved for the whole school.
“If we had something else to identify with,” he said. “The problem of violating our agreement goes away.”
