Pekin Community High School District 303

Pekin Community High School District 303 is a school district in Pekin, Illinois. It operates one high school, Pekin Community High School (PCHS). As of 2016 the school has 1,200 students. The 125-acre (51 ha) campus includes its principal campus buildings totaling 550,000 square feet (51,000 m2) of space; these buildings house 133 classrooms, the 600 seat F.M. Peterson Theater, two gymnasiums, a natatorium, and several computer labs.[1]

Mascot Controversy

From the high school's founding until the 1981 school year, the football team was officially named the "Pekin Chinks", represented by a red dragon logo, done in part to represent the town of Pekin's relation to the Chinese city of Peking.[2][3] Understandably, this name generated controversy for its use of a racial slur. In 1974, a vote was conducted within the student body to change the name, and the vote ended in a landslide victory for "chinks" at 1,034 votes to 182.[3] A second vote received similar results.[3] In 1980, after a wealth of controversy, the school board forced a name change to "Pekin Dragons"; a name that has stayed to the present. To this day, graduates from the pre-dragon era of the district have expressed a desire for the original name to return.[3][2]

gollark: Blackmail you, leak it, use it as a pretext to do something else, who knows.
gollark: It does, because each person with access to your data is another one who might have some incentive to be evil.
gollark: Is it? Well, it's not a personal psychologically.
gollark: The government isn't a person. It's a vast corruptible organization with incentives which don't really align with your own.
gollark: I mean, if it was, I don't know, some totalitarian government or other, and I was protesting against them, that would be an incentive.

References
  1. "Welcome About PCHS." Pekin Community High School District 303. Retrieved on February 15, 2016.
  2. "Controversial mascots". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2019-10-21.
  3. SIMON, ROGER. "The Chinks' nickname: It's not PC, it's decency". baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2019-10-21.


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