We are excited to share with you the mascot and school colors for Riverdale Ridge High School:  Mascot: Raven  Colors: Dark Blue, Light Blue, & Silver

Background The following process was used for developing the mascot and color scheme:  Comprehensive review of existing mascots for high schools in the immediate area as well as the state overall; the review included looking at mascots used nationally, but focus was on local area high schools  Mascots were identified for a community survey using the following key factors: o Original mascot in relation to surrounding high schools, state, and nation o Supportive of positive school spirit/pride o Relevance to area  Similar research was conducted for color schemes, adding a review of most popular college color combinations to identify a large sampling of possible color combinations for community consideration  A community survey was conducted from May 15th-21st and was reopened due to requests from students through Facebook and the 27J communications department from May 23rd-28th o The primary distribution of the survey was through the Brantner and West Ridge elementary school communities as these are the only two feeder schools with 100% of their boundary incorporated into the RRHS boundary o District web pages also promoted the survey  Results of the survey were analyzed by the Riverdale Ridge administration team to make the final selection of the mascot (Raven) and school colors (Dark Blue, Light Blue, and Silver)

The following key considerations were leveraged in making selecting the mascot:

 Originality: The raven was viewed by all as a unique high school mascot. While a bird is used by fellow SD27J high school Prairie View (the Thunderhawks), the use of a Raven is limited nationally as well as locally. No other high school in Colorado employs the Raven as their mascot. Sample designs demonstrated the ability to avoid using black as part of the color scheme, which was important as PVHS has black a primary school color.

 Relevance to area: The raven does exist in the state and in Adams County. In addition to the raven being a habitant of the area, as the subject of the famous poem by Edgar Allen Poe, the raven also captures the folklore related to Riverdale road being haunted.

 Supportive of school culture: The raven is often seen as symbolizing wisdom knowledge, creation, and prestige. The Northwest Native Americans revere the raven as creator of many things and a benevolent figure who helps people. Considered to be one of the most intelligent birds, displaying an ability to use logic in tests, the raven is a clever bird often seen as a playful. Clever, intelligent, revered, benevolent, and playful all are positive representations for RRHS. Additionally, being feared as a mysterious and an intimidating bird of prey is positive for our athletic teams.

 Community survey results: With over 500 survey responses, the lion and raven shared approximately 1/3 each of the total count and both were the clear favorites by the student respondents. The lion was recommended as the symbol for a mascot of “Royals” in nearly a dozen individual responses. The alliteration of Ravens with Riverdale Ridge was cited by several as a desired consideration, however, several other alliterations were shared (Royals, Rattlers, Raptors, Rangers, etc.). Of the six classifications of respondents (elementary school student, middle school student, high school student, parent/family member, community member without a student, and 27J staff member) the raven was preferred by four of the six and was second most favored by the other two groups.

The following key considerations were leveraged in selecting the school colors:  The color scheme selected is unique for the area, however, it is not uncommon in sports, clubs, schools  The three colors can be used in supporting the selected mascot  The community survey drove the final selection o Dark blue/light blue received the highest percentage of responses o Dark blue and light blue were also high response colors when individually paired with white o Silver/green was the second highest selected color scheme (driven by parent/family members and an equal number of elementary students selecting Dark blue/light blue as they did Silver/green). Green/white was the least favored color combination. The addition of the trim color of silver is in recognition of the silver/green favored scheme.  Having a three color scheme provides for a wide variety of design options moving forward