{"id":380889,"date":"2026-06-30T17:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/380889\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:13:09","slug":"which-fresno-area-high-schools-are-affected-by-mascot-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/380889\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Fresno-area high schools are affected by mascot bill?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/FRS_Mendota0011.jpeg\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"674\" title=\"A marquee sign stands in front of Mendota High School on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. The Mendota Unified School District has been a source of much community pride in recent years.\" alt=\"A marquee sign stands in front of Mendota High School on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. The Mendota Unified School District has been a source of much community pride in recent years.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        A marquee sign stands in front of Mendota High School on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. The Mendota Unified School District has been a source of much community pride in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>                CRAIG KOHLRUSS<\/p>\n<p>            ckohlruss@fresnobee.com<\/p>\n<p>A new law goes into effect July 1 that affects California public schools with mascots or team names that reference Native Americans, impacting several sites in the Fresno area.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB3074\">Assembly Bill 3074<\/a>, all California public schools not operated by tribal organizations cannot use \u201cany derogatory Native American term\u201d to represent school mascots or athletic teams.<\/p>\n<p>Before the new rule goes into effect this week, Fresno Unified announced <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/news\/local\/education-lab\/article316152290.html\">new mascots<\/a> for three elementary schools. Another approach is getting permission from a registered tribe to maintain the mascots in question, which <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/news\/local\/education-lab\/article313725068.html\">Clovis Unified<\/a> did for a middle school in December.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the high schools in the greater Fresno area whose mascots could undergo change:<\/p>\n<p>Sanger High School ApachesSierra High School ChieftainsFarmersville High School AztecsMendota High School AztecsChowchilla Union High School TribeTulare Union High School Tribe<\/p>\n<p>Most of these schools received permission from registered Native American tribes to keep their names \u2014 some well before the July 1, 2026, deadline. The North Fork Rancheria Mono Tribe allowed Sanger High and Chowchilla Union High to keep their mascots.<\/p>\n<p>Sierra High got permission from the North Fork Mono Tribe and the Big Sandy Mono Tribe.<\/p>\n<p>The Tule River Tribe allowed Tulare Union High to keep its current mascot.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Mendota High said the school was still trying to figure out its mascot situation. Representatives for Farmersville Unified did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/profile\/307508201\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_4053.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" alt=\"Profile Image of Nick Fenley\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <a class=\"author-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/profile\/307508201\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Fenley<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n<p>            Nick Fenley is a reporter covering education, lawsuits, breaking news and more for The Fresno Bee. He\u2019s originally from the Imperial Valley and has been with The Bee since 2025.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A marquee sign stands in front of Mendota High School on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. The Mendota Unified&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-380889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380889","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=380889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}