{"id":193342,"date":"2026-02-25T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193342\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:32:09","slug":"sdusd-approves-clairemont-high-athletics-name-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193342\/","title":{"rendered":"SDUSD approves Clairemont High athletics name change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>SDUSD Superintendent Fabi Bagula speaks at a press conference at Clairemont High School in August 2025, surrounded by student-athletes and Middle School Athletics Coordiantor Lonnie Jones (far left). (File photo by James Miller\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Chieftains no more \u2014 the Captains are here to stay. <\/p>\n

The San Diego Unified School District Board of Education has approved changing the nickname<\/a> of Clairemont High School\u2019s athletic teams from \u201cChieftains\u201d to \u201cCaptains\u201d to comply with a state law banning the use of derogatory terms for Indigenous people as names for teams.<\/p>\n

Clairemont Principal Karly Johnstone wrote in a letter to board members that the Captains nickname \u201cwas chosen largely for its inclusive application and being a title students can strive to attain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThough Captains is a human reference, we are looking for our mascot to be a gender-neutral animal or symbol which will represent the inclusive culture of Clairemont High School and we look forward to working this into our school culture,\u201d Johnstone added.<\/p>\n

The new nickname was selected after a nearly year-long community engagement process, according to the district. The change will go into effect in the 2026-27 school year, but the district added that it is not likely that every iteration of \u201cChieftain\u201d will change by then.<\/p>\n

San Diego Unified<\/a> and Clairemont High School<\/a> first considered changing the nickname last April, after the Board of Education revised an administrative regulation and policy in order to \u201cprovide clearer direction on changes to school names and mascots.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the board policy, before changing a school nickname or mascot, the school leaders should consider:<\/p>\n

whether a school nickname or mascot reflects historical harm or exclusion;<\/p>\n

the principles of equity, belonging and community empowerment; and<\/p>\n

cultural, historical, or community significance.<\/p>\n

Additionally, proposed name changes must also include evaluations of costs for signage, uniforms, or other associated charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district has had dust-ups over the years involving district school name changes, and leaders were determined to ensure this time would be different,\u201d the district said in a release, adding that there was a \u201cvery active community engagement effort\u201d surrounding this name change. This included:<\/p>\n

a 10-person naming committee featuring a board representative, area superintendent, site principal and athletic director, teacher and two community members and two students;<\/p>\n

an open call for nickname suggestions, which were then discussed during town halls to determine further consideration;<\/p>\n

six town hall meetings that were also live-streamed;<\/p>\n

a community survey on the final four names, with over 500 responses; and<\/p>\n

regular updates on the Clairemont High Mascot Rebranding web page.<\/p>\n

SDUSD board vice president, described the process as \u201ccomprehensive and inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChange is difficult, and the way our Clairemont High School students, staff and community navigated this name change was outstanding, \u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Local tribal leaders sent a letter supporting the change, according to SDUSD.<\/p>\n

\u201cClairemont High School was the first school in the district to implement a mascot name change under the new state and district policy,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SDUSD Superintendent Fabi Bagula speaks at a press conference at Clairemont High School in August 2025, surrounded by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[90496,90497,90498,74,76,75,50069],"class_list":["post-193342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-captains","tag-clairemont-high-school","tag-nicknames","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sdusd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}