One Wildcat effort inspires new Homecoming
With back-to-school in full swing, the leaves beginning to change and fantasy football teams taking shape, it is time to celebrate homecoming weekend in the Springfield City School District.
The three-day celebration is always a high point of the autumn season for me. The homecoming parade brings together our middle school students, high school clubs, the homecoming court royalty and the Wildcat Marching Band in a true show of #Catpride for our community, the homecoming football game rallies past and present Wildcats to cheer the team onto victory and the homecoming dance allows our high school students to dress in their best for a night of glitz, glamor and fun.
But this year, ‘Homecoming’ has a new meaning for me with the unveiling of our ‘One Wildcat Initiative’ earlier this year.
The ‘One Wildcat’ initiative is a unifying feature of our Strategic Plan. To put it simply, it means we are ALL Wildcats. This concept began to form by the merging of North and South High Schools, but for several years after that, many of our students still only identified as a Wildcat if they attended Springfield High School (or Springfield South High School). It caused our school district to feel disjointed. Each of our 16 school buildings had their own identity with no real connection to any of the others or the District as a whole.
When the football team took off for the State Championship game last year, we were all witnesses to what a unified Springfield could look like – one in which we were all Wildcats, cheering for the Wildcats. It was so powerful to see people, whether they were SCSD graduates or not, lining the streets, with signs and cow bells, from the northernmost end of town to the southernmost. The ‘One Wildcat’ initiative was built from this positive momentum.
It is our hope that each and every student, whether enrolled at Snowhill Elementary, Fulton Elementary, Hayward Middle School or any other building, will aspire to be and can envision themselves as Wildcats. Therefore, based on the feedback from our Strategic Planning Committee, this summer we formally ‘retired’ our elementary and middle school mascots with the creation of a light-hearted video that can be viewed on our District’s Youtube channel. While we understand that this may have been a tough goodbye for many of our past students, we do feel that it was a needed change in order to truly make our students and staff feel like ‘One Family.’
I am thrilled to see our buildings, staff and students embrace this change with open arms since it was introduced to them. Our principals started to decorate their buildings with new Wildcat decor. Our students were welcomed on the first day of school with blue and yellow balloons, confetti and sidewalk chalk. Our elementary and middle school communities encouraged their buildings to wear their best themed outfits – pajamas, Western and sports jerseys – as part of the Homecoming Spirit Week festivities. Our staff attended the Homecoming football game together and cheered on the team with Wildcat pennant flags. Our alumni from the original Springfield High School, North and South High Schools and the new era of SHS sat side by side and rehashed fond memories. That is what ‘community’ is supposed to look like.
For the first time in my tenure as superintendent, I felt as though every member of our Wildcat Family had a part of Homecoming — but this is just the beginning.
It is my hope that the ‘One Wildcat’ initiative will invigorate and inspire a sense of #Catpride in each of our 7,700 students, our 1,500 staff members and the 59,000 members of the Springfield community. We want the SCSD to feel like home to each of them.
As the District dives deeper into our Strategic Plan, you begin to see the initiative take shape — whether that is updated signage at our District buildings, new additions to your spirit wear wardrobe or a visit from Willie the Wildcat at a community event.
We invite the public to join us whenever possible to experience the true essence of the Wildcat Spirit. It is only because of the support of our parents, families, community members and partners that we grow stronger as a District each school year. Together, we will continue this positive energy for many years to come.
Happy Homecoming and Go Wildcats!