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A faculty district on Lengthy Island estimates it’ll spend a daft $23 million to erase its “Thunderbirds” group title — because it’s pressured to adjust to a state ban on Native American logos and imagery.
Connetquot, whose baseball group lately received the Suffolk County championship, has been in quiet communication with the state of New York and expects to completely section out its longtime moniker by March of subsequent yr, in keeping with paperwork obtained by The Publish.
“The District has invested important funds in larger-scale athletic prices at the highschool and center colleges with out the Thunderbirds title or imagery,” Superintendent Joseph Centamore wrote to Dave Frank, assistant commissioner of the state Division of Schooling.
“These prices included the alternative of turf fields, indoor fitness center flooring and gear, and different fixtures, in addition to repainting initiatives all through the faculties totaling $23,620,000,” he mentioned within the letter, dated Could 6.
Connetquot will even should spend “a further $323,470.42” on “scorers’ tables, cheer gear, wall pads, scoreboards, extra uniforms, and sure banners and signage.”
The district declined to remark.
The Thunderbirds, which use no related imagery, shares its title with a Canadian Hockey League group primarily based outdoors Seattle and an Air Pressure demonstration squadron that performs at Jones Seashore.
The district has been combating in courtroom since 2023 with fellow Native American-named districts on Lengthy Island, together with Massapequa, Wantagh and Wyandanch.
Nonetheless, a chief justice dismissed the go well with in March, however solely Massapequa amended its criticism to maintain the struggle going.
President Trump intervened in April, declaring “LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!” and ordered Secretary of Schooling Linda McMahon to research the problem at a nationwide stage.
Regardless of the presidential assist, Centamore’s current letter requested an extension past the June 30 deadline set by the Board of Regents to adjust to the state ban.
He added that the college has been rebranding for the previous 5 years and “has accomplished not less than 75% of the mandatory work for compliance.”
The district was granted a yr’s extension final week.
On paper, Wantagh can be backing off and allotted a staggering $418,000 “for the aim of engaged on mascot-related initiatives,” in keeping with a deadline extension request Superintendent John C. McNamara despatched to Frank on April 24.
The true value can be nearer to $700,000 for Wantagh, which has 2,850 college students from kindergarten via twelfth grade, in keeping with a consultant.
“Concurrently, the district stays dedicated to preserving our ‘Warrior’ title,” McNamara and his board wrote in a current neighborhood letter after their 2026 extension was lately authorized.
“The extension granted to our district is critical because it permits us extra time not just for considerate implementation if wanted, but additionally for the authorized proceedings regarding our attraction to achieve a decision.”
Chief concern
The struggle continues for Massapequa and its Chiefs group, with McMahon lately pledging federal intervention and calling the ban a civil rights problem as a result of it singles out Native American tradition.
Massapequa is anticipating to should pay roughly $1 million if it’s pressured to rebrand as a part of the ban, which threatened colleges by saying those that don’t comply would face lack of state funding and different sanctions.
The district’s homegrown Harvard lawyer, one-time Chief Oliver Roberts, is now sending a letter to New York’s Indigenous Mascot Advisory Group, demanding an extension for Massapequa.
Roberts wrote that the state is “compelled to increase its enforcement deadlines” on behalf of McMahon’s federal findings that fall below Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“The District can’t, below any circumstances, lawfully have interaction in discriminatory conduct towards Indigenous people, teams, college students, workers, or residents, “he wrote.
“Nor can it erase or suppress Indigenous cultural id on the path of the Regents,” Roberts added, signing the letter, “As soon as a Chief, at all times a Chief.”
Frank responded final week to the federal authorities’s discriminatory findings — and risk to contain the Justice Division — in a letter that implies increasing the ban to all ethnic group names the state deems offensive.
“That’s their workaround … we’ve demonstrated that this regulation was not a good suggestion,” Massapequa Faculty Board President Kerry Wachter informed The Publish at a “Save The Chiefs” rally Saturday.
“Now you’re wanting to place one other unfunded mandate on high of all these districts who’re simply barely making it, simply to not give Massapequa the win?”
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