For making a meaningful impact by using 天美网站传媒传媒 to gather diverse perspectives and ensure the presence of an authentic community voice in district plans.
鈥淚t could have been so much worse,鈥� admits Chris Payne, Chief Communications Officer at Union Public Schools, 鈥渂ut by the time we rolled out the final answer, everybody agreed it was the right one.鈥� He鈥檚 referring to the mascot change the district finalized in November 2021, officially removing the mascot that had represented Union Public Schools since 1945. As the eighth-largest school district in Oklahoma, home to close to 16,000 students, all eyes were on them as they worked to replace their controversial Native American mascot.
With Union Public Schools鈥� coverage in , Payne has been fielding calls from other districts looking to do the same thing. 鈥淚've had four or five other school districts reach out on this topic,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd I think we're going to continue to get calls from folks saying, 鈥楬ey, we want to use your research process to change our mascot.鈥欌��
Why are other districts so excited about Union Public Schools鈥� new mascot, the Redhawks? Because the district managed to garner 90 percent support from their staff, students, and community members, 鈥渁nd when you're getting rid of something that you鈥檝e had for 75 years, 90 percent is a win!鈥� Payne emphasizes.
Fulfilling their core values
This isn鈥檛 the first time Union Public Schools proposed a change to their mascot鈥攖hey considered a similar change in the 2002-2003 school year. There was increasing public pressure to retire the Redskins mascot because of its stereotyping of the Native American communities that make up close to 10 percent of Oklahoma鈥檚 population. However, at the time, the district decided that since most of the feedback was coming from outside of the district, the mascot would remain.
Fast forward 17 years and leadership was fielding far more complaints from inside the district, so Payne asked leadership to reconsider the mascot change. In the wake of George Floyd鈥檚 murder at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25th, 2020, it was the right time to galvanize the community for the mascot change.
鈥淲e felt like [the mascot] no longer matched our core values,鈥� he tells us. Union Public Schools is guided by , and the previous mascot violated three of them:
Inclusiveness, cultivating an organizational culture of accepting children, families, and employees for who they are rather than categorizing them by income, ethnicity, or ability;
Collegiality, demonstrating respect and an ability to work as team members;
and Empowerment, helping people reach their full potential.
鈥淲e needed to start with the core values and the attributes this new mascot needed to have,鈥� Payne explains. 鈥淎nd that's where 天美网站传媒传媒 came in.鈥�
Deciding on the process
While Payne wasn鈥檛 sure exactly how he was going to guide Union Public Schools through this process, he definitely knew how he wasn鈥檛 going to do it. 鈥淚n researching mascot changes at other school districts, we learned from others鈥� mistakes. Because they weren鈥檛 transparent and inclusive of all audiences, it resulted in a lack of agreement, and there was a huge backlash towards [the new mascot].
鈥淲hen people heard that we would be doing this mascot search, I heard from people from different schools that said, 鈥榃e did it the worst way. There wasn't a process. We had this [new mascot] foisted upon us, and nobody felt like they had input,鈥欌�� he tells us. 鈥淭hat's why I knew we couldn鈥檛 do it that way. We had to do it in a meaningful way and solicit people's input.鈥� Payne was looking for a way to engage the whole community in the search for the new mascot, and he needed a platform that would facilitate a respectful, scaled discussion with the district.
This was the first time Union Public Schools had used 天美网站传媒传媒 to consult their community. While Payne was researching the best way to approach the mascot change, his alma mater, Shawnee Mission School District, turned up. They had also done similar mascot changes in their district. When he spoke to his counterpart in the district, they recommended the tool they relied on most for gathering community input鈥斕烀劳敬酱�.
鈥淭hey had nothing but excellent things to say,鈥� he tells us. 鈥淚 was sold, and immediately went to my superintendent. I saw right away that [天美网站传媒传媒] was going to help us cut through the clutter and get some quick answers.鈥�
Asking for community input
With leadership in agreement on the mascot change, Payne launched his first Exchange in June 2021, asking Union Public Schools鈥� students, parents, staff, administrators, alumni, and community members the following question:
What characteristics or attributes do you want to see reflected in the NEW MASCOT at Union High School?
There was one issue he was worried about鈥攑articipation. Union Public Schools initiated the mascot change near the end of the 2020/2021 school year, and Payne was concerned that few people would want to participate in the discussion during their summer breaks. However, Union鈥檚 students didn鈥檛 want to be without a mascot, and the time crunch was a major concern for Payne. To encourage support, students created a jingle and to promote the mascot change, and Payne made sure he leveraged the district鈥檚 social media and local news media to share the Exchange with the public.
He was thrilled with the response. 鈥淲e had more than 1,100 people [participate] and more than 35,000 ratings. So it was very, very well received,鈥� he shares. As someone with years of communications experience, Payne knows that it鈥檚 not always easy to get communities to weigh in on district decisions like this one. 鈥淲e鈥檝e done traditional surveys many times, and I think in a lot of ways people are kind of over it, so it鈥檚 hard to engage them,鈥� he explains, 鈥淸but] 天美网站传媒传媒 is just such an engaging tool.鈥�
He immediately noticed the positive response staff and students had to the Exchange. 鈥淧eople thought it was really fun [to use]. They were getting their phones out and saying, 鈥淥h, this is really cool.鈥� It's fun to visit. You can't minimize that. I think it speaks to why we had so many people offer input.鈥�
What makes us US?
While participant thoughts rolled into the Exchange, Payne was impressed with the way our product continuously analyzed the conversation. He was immediately drawn to Wordcloud, a tool that highlights the keywords in the discussion, sorted by frequency or rating. With Wordcloud, he had an easy-to-understand visual representation of what was most important to his participants. 鈥淓specially when we were looking at attributes, [Wordcloud] helped because it was like鈥攐h, they want a strong, fierce mascot. They also want something that鈥檚 unifying and honors diversity,鈥� he explains.
Payne was also drawn to our Differences tool, which analyzes and compares groups of polarizing ratings to show where people agree and disagree. 鈥淸Differences] helped me see where we clearly had consensus and where there were divergent, polarizing opinions,鈥� he explains. 鈥淓ven in the ratings of other people's opinions, we very quickly saw where we had agreement and where we didn't. It鈥檚 a great tool for building consensus.鈥�
鈥淚 knew we were going to end up probably having a runoff between two or three different mascots,鈥� Payne shares, 鈥淎nd my fear was that we were going to get this 50/50 split.鈥� With the representation of the entire district in the balance, he was understandably worried about the conversation becoming divisive. However, by engaging participants with our anti-bias technology and anonymous rating system, Payne ensured the mascot change didn鈥檛 become a contentious issue. 鈥淚t is an especially good platform for topics where you have very divergent opinions, and you鈥檙e looking for commonalities,鈥� he acknowledges.
Meet the new Union mascot
In his initial attributes Exchange, two mascot ideas quickly rose to the top鈥�Redhawks and Bison. When school started up again for the fall, Payne distributed his second district-wide Exchange, asking people to choose their favorite of the top two mascots. This time around, participation hit almost 10,000 people, including more than 7,000 students, and over 100,000 ratings. Redhawks were the clear frontrunner of the two, and as Payne was going back over the more than 300 mascot submissions from the previous months, he surfaced a design submitted by one of Union Public School鈥檚 students, a junior at Union High School named Caiden Morales.
When Morales鈥� design was presented to the district through a third Exchange, it was clear that his design was the right choice. More than 1,500 people weighed in on the logo design, and Morales was able to take their suggestions and create the finished mascot logo. His design is representing the school district he鈥檚 been a part of since preschool, painted on gym floors and in school hallways. 鈥淧eople feel like an insider designed it, and it represents us. You just can鈥檛 get any better than that,鈥� Payne says, 鈥淚 think this is probably going to be life-changing for [Morales].鈥�
Union Public Schools is well underway in welcoming its new Redhawks mascot into the district. There鈥檚 a new basketball floor featuring the design, and they鈥檙e in the process of creating a costumed mascot. The district is excited about the change. 鈥淚t ended up being a slam dunk for us,鈥� Payne shares. 鈥淧eople felt very much a part of the process. Everybody has embraced [Redhawks] so much and now they're running with it, which I love because now I can let go and it becomes the people's mascot.鈥�
Confident decision-making
Again, Payne goes back to how difficult the process of changing a 75-year-old mascot could have been for Union Public Schools. 鈥淭his [process] could have been nightmarish鈥攚e could have had a lot of haters out there saying, we don't like the mascot,鈥� he emphasizes. 鈥淯sing [天美网站传媒传媒], I think, eliminated a lot of that. People felt talked to and listened to. We've had very little pushback from people. It was just a terrific process.鈥�
Making a decision that directly impacts so many people鈥檚 lives is daunting, but the process left Payne feeling nothing short of confident when he presented the final mascot. 鈥淚 absolutely felt confident [sharing decisions I made] using the 天美网站传媒传媒 tool,鈥� he explains. 鈥淸The participants] gave me the words to use and the attributes, and I knew what fit with our core values, so it just all worked together seamlessly.鈥� When he took the results to the superintendent and district leadership, he wasn鈥檛 worried about pushback; 鈥淸the decision] was in agreement with their own beliefs because they also participated in [the Exchange]. Everybody felt like an active participant.鈥�
Besides the overwhelming support for the process and the confidence Payne felt in presenting ideas to leadership and the community, what other impacts did 天美网站传媒传媒 have on Union Public Schools? 鈥淚t saves time and money. I know for a fact that 天美网站传媒传媒 has saved us months,鈥� Payne says. 鈥淚f I had had to collect information and go back out and share it鈥攖he way 天美网站传媒传媒 dynamically takes all of that [input] and people can then rate it. That takes out a lot of steps.鈥�
Building consensus and community
Payne is excited about future opportunities to leverage 天美网站传媒传媒 for district communications. He鈥檚 got plans to tap into student voice for the fall semester to gather student input on their learning needs and school security. 鈥淸Using 天美网站传媒传媒], we can anticipate their concerns, calm the waters, and make them feel listened to,鈥� he explains.
He also plans to use 天美网站传媒传媒 with school administrators and teachers to find out what they need to feel supported by the district. 鈥淪ince it's been such a good process, I've renewed our contract, and we're going to continue to find some other really creative uses [for 天美网站传媒传媒],鈥� Payne shares.
The mascot change process was eye-opening for Payne. 鈥淔or years and years, I have used tools that are less open,鈥� he tells us. 鈥淚've tended to use survey questions that are much more structured.鈥� When we asked Payne to reflect on what made 天美网站传媒传媒 stand out among the engagement tools he was used to, he shared this:
鈥淚t's made me change my thinking about how I ask questions. It's expanded my horizons and my thinking. 天美网站传媒传媒 doesn't limit you, because there are always things you haven鈥檛 anticipated that people will say. And this enables you to use that open-endedness to figure out, is this something that many people agree with, or is this just an outlier that only one person thought was important? [天美网站传媒传媒] helps you sift through that pretty quickly.鈥�
We鈥檙e thrilled about the success Union Public Schools experienced with their mascot change. And with a champion like Chris Payne on our team, we know we鈥檒l continue to help school districts connect with their communities and deliver exceptional educational experiences.
鈥淔or years and years, I have used tools that are less open. I've tended to use survey questions that are much more structured. 天美网站传媒传媒 doesn't limit you, because there are always things you haven鈥檛 anticipated that people will say. It's made me change my thinking about how I ask questions. It's expanded my horizons and my thinking.鈥�
CHRISTOPHER PAYNE, Chief Communications Officer, Union Public Schools
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鈥淚t's made me change my thinking about how I ask questions. It's expanded my horizons and my thinking. 天美网站传媒传媒 doesn't limit you, because there are always things you haven鈥檛 anticipated that people will say. And this enables you to use that open-endedness to figure out, is this something that many people agree with, or is this just an outlier that only one person thought was important? [天美网站传媒传媒] helps you sift through that pretty quickly.鈥�
