Last school year, USD 490 began researching our community and school district history as part of a Branding Identity Project. One of the pieces of that project includes refreshing the district logo and school mascots. There will be no changes to school colors or mascot types; however, we want to create a sense of visual unity between all of our schools and programs so everyone can see they are all #PartOfThePride.

We began by looking in old yearbooks and reading books about the history of El Dorado and our schools. Next, we hosted several meetings with students, parents, staff, alumni, and community members to learn what they are proud of about our schools and what characteristics they feel best represent the people who learn, work, and live here.

The District hired a company, Gardner Design, to help design an updated district logo and mascots. School and district leadership looked at four proposed designs for the district and high school and narrowed the choices down to two options that would best reflect the qualities identified during the research meetings. These were previewed to school board members, then students and staff were provided the opportunity to vote for the one they wanted to represent their school. The version with the most votes became the official logo and mascot. 

This project will be completed in phases. The first step was determining the district logo and high school mascot. The next step will be to refresh the middle and elementary school mascots, which will be announced sometime after winter break.

The majority of funds used for this project could not be used in areas such as salaries or bussing because of the type of funds they were. Also, we do not plan to overhaul everything all at once. As items need repaired and replaced, we will incorporate the new images into those updates.

Please see our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section below for additional information. If you have a question that has not been answered in the Project Overview or FAQs, please submit it using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/6ivzdjQf7NCdG5xL7