The Caledonia Confederates have become the Caledonia Cavaliers.
Caledonia High School Principal Gregory Elliott presented the change, along with a mock-up of the new logo, to the Lowndes County School District board at its monthly meeting Friday. Elliott said Cavaliers was one of three mascots proposed by a nine-member committee formed to choose a school mascot replacing the Confederates. In a vote by all three campuses, just more than half of Caledonia’s first through 12th graders — 57 percent — chose the Cavaliers over the “Cardinals” or the “Commodores.”
The nine-member committee included the three campus principals, four high school students and two members of the community, all of whom decided to keep the cardinal and white colors and for the logo to still contain a “Caledonia C” and swords pointed up, Elliott said.
“The students felt very strongly about keeping the swords up, keeping the colors,” Elliott said. “They really kind of wanted a mascot that started with a ‘C.'”
The board voted in July to do away with Confederates as the mascot following the state Legislature voting to remove Confederate imagery from the state flag. The schools’ athletic teams had been called the Confederates since the 1950s.
Superintendent Sam Allison said he thinks the change, though difficult for some people, was something that would help the district welcome and work with all its students.
“We stand strong for what we want to do with kids, but we never want to do anything to alienate ourself from any group that walks through our door,” Allison told the board after Elliott’s presentation. “That’s one thing that makes change hard. I may be very strong in a belief of anything, but I want to let my actions show people that I respect them. … I know that Mr. Elliott and Ms. (Karen) Pittman (principal of Caledonia Middle School), all our principals feel that same way. We want to serve every kid in our county so they can reach our greatest potential. … We never want to do anything (that) gets in the way of relationships with the people that can help our kids.”
The board didn’t vote to approve the mascot because board attorney Jeff Smith said it wasn’t a requirement in order to adopt the new mascot. However, no board members objected, and several said they approved.
“I think it’s a good move,” said board Vice President Jane Kilgore, who represents Caledonia on the board.
She also moved for Allison to form another committee to look at the other school campuses, New Hope and West Lowndes — whose mascots are the Trojans and the Panthers, respectively — to ensure their mascots are not also offensive or inappropriate to some. The board approved her motion unanimously.
COVID-19 update
Allison also updated the board on the district’s COVID-19 numbers. He said there had been 20 cases among students and staff that week as of the beginning of the meeting at 12:30 p.m. He added the district had seen 26 cases in each of the previous weeks, which had initially been incorrectly reported to Mississippi Department of Health as 27 cases the week of Oct. 26-30 and 28 the week of Nov. 2-6.
Throughout the year, he said, the district has had seven or eight outbreaks — defined by MSDH as three or more cases in one group — including two on sports teams and one on a bus.
LCSD offers students the option between attending school in person and learning online. Allison told the board he wants to keep in person learning an option for students for as long as possible.
“The last thing we want to do is shut our schools down,” he said.
He said teachers gave students a benchmark test at the beginning of the school year to see whether they were behind after spending March to May doing online learning only.
“We just gave them last year’s end-of-the-year test,” he said. “We were just curious as to where they were. They were behind, much further behind than I thought they were going to be, across the district. … There’s so much in that classroom that we can’t replace with virtual.”
He said most classrooms have plexiglass between students and that students and staff are required to wear masks and wash their hands or use hand sanitizer regularly. He added administrators have also been in contact with MSDH for advice.
“Our numbers may do something next week and I may call you all and say, ‘I think we need to do this,’ but right now, we’re just going to take it day by day and make decisions that we feel are best,” he said.
Board member Brian Clark said he appreciates everything staff and administrators are doing to keep the students healthy and in school.
“Twenty is 20 more than we would want,” he said. “But when you put it in perspective, we have over 5,000 students. Some small businesses have probably had close to 20. I think it’s a testament to how good you and your staff are trying to manage.”
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