Revealed in July, the Clarke County School District has a new logo and slogan for the 2018-19 school year. The logo, which features a yellow sun, replaced an older logo of a star-shaped person. “I prefer the old logo just because I grew up with it. The new one looks better though and it’s simple,” Clarke Central High School senior Elian Infante said. Photo by Katie Grace Upchurch
The Clarke County School District implements a new logo and slogan for the 2018-19 school year.
Heading into the 2018-2019 school year, the Clarke County School District revealed a new logo and slogan for the district. The logo was first shown at the PACE (Prepare, Align, Collaborate and Engage) Institute, a two-day CCSD staff kick-off, which took place at the Classic Center on July 30 and 31. It follows a series of changes brought by Superintendent Demond Means since he arrived in CCSD in 2017.
“The Board of Education passed, in June, a strategic plan. The mission statement of that strategic plan is clear. It talks about this school district being a community of ambitious learners committed to equity and excellence on every campus and every classroom for every child,” CCSD Superintendent Demond Means said at an Aug. 8 Board of Education meeting.
Means hopes the new logo reflects the Board of Education’s strategic plan.
“When we think of our school system, we want to always make sure that we’re a face of resilience and have limitless opportunities for all of our kids to grow. That there is no ceiling to break, so you’ll notice our logo has changed, colors have changed,” Means said. “The logo is one of sun rays, which represents opportunity and great growth for our kids and our teachers moving forward.”
The logo is a blue square featuring a yellow sun sitting in the bottom-left corner with rays extending out. The slogan paired with it reads, “Clarke County School District Better Every Day.”
“I feel like the concept of the rising sun ties in with that (slogan),” CCHS fine arts teacher department Amanda Price said.
The logo has since been added to everything-CCSD from the CCSD email server to tote bags, calendars and more. CCHS senior Elian Infante has been going to school in the CCSD since kindergarten, and first saw the logo when he heard a friend talking about it, later finding it on the CCSD website.
“The new the CCSD logo looks like a cartoon sun in the corner with the rays extended to the end of the logo,” Infante said. “I first saw the logo when (my friend) complained about it so then I got on the CCSD website.”
Despite the logo’s now-prominence throughout the district, it has been met with mixed reactions from the CCSD community.
“I prefer the old logo just because I grew up with it. The new one looks better though and it’s simple,” Infante said.
Price agrees with Infante and wishes that a student could have been involved in the process of designing a new district logo.
“Given the fact that we have such a strong graphic design program at both high schools, and we have students working for different area businesses to design things, honestly I’m disappointed that the district did not reach out to have students design the logo,” Price said. “I feel like that would have given everyone more buy-in for it.”
In addition to the logo, the new CCSD slogan, “Clarke County School District Better Every Day,” has now become ever-present in the CCSD. Infante believes that the new slogan holds true within the CCSD.
“Our school district has made improvements to the way we learn. In elementary (school) I imagined that middle school and high school would’ve been textbooks and papers,” Infante said. “My big brother graduated in 2013 and he had to go into computer labs to do his classwork. That was just for special occasions. (Now) a lot of our classwork is on Chromebooks that were issued to us.”
According to Price, growth isn’t always straightforward, and that is something that she wishes was reflected in the new slogan.
“Change is not always linear, and I feel that our students should know that’s it’s okay to make mistakes. That’s something that I emphasize in my classroom,” Price said.
Infante shares Price’s opinion and believes that change may not be as simple as the new slogan presents it, but does think that the CCSD is making progress worthy of the sentiment.
“Nothing can get ‘Better Every Day,’ but CCSD has made enough improvements to where we earned that slogan,” Infante said. “This is my last year but I wonder what’s going to be next.”
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