Watertown High School is looking to formally sever ties with its past Native American-themed mascot, asking students to submit new ideas for a new school logo and nickname for its sports teams.
A school-sponsored contest has rekindled debate among parents and residents, with some longtime Watertown residents saying they want the school to stick with its time-honored traditions.
The contest comes about eight years after the town cast aside a logo depicting a marching, flag-carrying Native American, a depiction some found offensive, said Shirley Lundberg, principal of the high school, in an e-mail sent to parents.
The town had replaced the Indian figure on team uniforms with a black W outlined in red, said Superintendent Jean Fitzgerald, adding that recently “it came up that we’d like to have a 21st-century logo.”
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Michael Lahiff, the high school’s athletic director, said that in addition to the revamped logo, the school has excised the word “red” from its former “Red Raiders” team nickname.
“I don’t think the decision was taken up at a School Committee meeting,” he said. “I believe it’s been taken up with various superintendents over the years. It’s been ongoing for a while.”
Though the school took the logo off its scoreboard and removed it from official uniforms, Lahiff said, the depiction of the Native American is still used on Watertown High School paraphernalia sold around town and by booster clubs.
“It was phased out from the school end of things, but it’s not phased out in the town,” he said.
In her e-mail to parents, Lundberg said the contest for the new logo began in April after a meeting with faculty and the high school’s student class officers. The school then hosted an assembly for students featuring the screening of a documentary, “In Whose Honor?”
Lundberg said the film helped students “take a critical look at the long-running practice of ‘honoring’ Native Americans by using them as mascots, nicknames, or logos.”
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The high school stopped accepting logos from students last week, and the class officers are in the process of choosing finalists for the student body and faculty to consider in a vote on Tuesday, according to Lundberg’s e-mail. The winning design will be announced Friday.
The logo contest appears to have sparked strong feelings among parents.
“From my perspective,’’ said Laura Cherry, whose child is a student in the school system, “choosing a logo that moves away from racial stereotypes is a step in the right direction.”
Marc Barenholtz, a lifelong resident of Watertown who has two children in the school system, differed strongly. “It’s such nonsense — it’s a logo. It means nothing,” he said.
“They’re trying to be politically correct, but they’re offending more people by changing it.
“We’ve always been known as the Watertown Red Raiders,” said Barenholtz, a 1986 Watertown High graduate. “A lot of people don’t want to be known as anything else.”
Watertown is hardly the only town or sports franchise to grapple with changing a Native American-themed mascot.
The Natick School Committee, for example, faced vocal protests when it voted in 2007 to drop Redmen as the nickname of the district’s sports teams, considering it offensive to Native Americans.
On the national level, the NFL’s Washington Redskins franchise has resisted pressure to change its name for years.
“We’ll never change the name,’’ said Redskins owner Daniel Snyder in 2013. “It’s that simple.”
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Jaclyn Reiss can be reached at Jaclyn.Reiss@globe.com.