Mason City School Board to discuss mascot transition Monday

(ABC 6 News) – The Mason City Community School District is meeting on Monday to discuss their mascot, currently, it’s the Mohawks.

Superintendent Dave Versteeg wrote in the meeting agenda that he’s urging the school board to start transitioning away from the Mohawks name.

These include Native American images and symbols. Moving forward at athletic events, the teams would not be introduced as the Mohawks, but they’d be known as Mason City.

The agenda also says any new merchandise designed with this new name would be fine, but the term Mohawks would be removed from the district website.

In January, the school board would meet again to complete this transition away from the Mohawks name, and they’d have a new mascot by July first.

The Meskwaki Nation in Iowa is also calling on 66 schools throughout the state to retire their native-themed school mascots.