It’s been a three and a half year discussion (putting it nicely) but as of the March 9th Paw Paw School Board Meeting, the Redskins mascot will officially be retired at the end of the current school year.

WWMT reports that the board voted tonight, 6-1, to change the mascot; this 3 and a half years after citizens held a rally to protest the school mascot in September of 2016. And just over 3 years since the school board voted 4-3, in February 2017, to keep the Redskins mascot.

That vote didn't sit well with citizens of Paw Paw because in December of 2019, according to WWMT, the US Dept of Education Office of Civil Rights launched an investigation into Paw Paw schools over a complaint that the education environment was a hostile one.

So after a meeting on March 4th, when the superintendent heard from a couple of hundred people and how they felt, minus the media - he blocked them from the meeting - he decided to recommend a change of mascots was needed so they could move on with, you know, the education of our future.

WWMT says the school board expects to have a recommendation, from meetings with student groups and the creation of a student/facility committee, by the July school board meeting.

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