{"id":938,"date":"2017-05-18T12:24:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T16:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/?p=938"},"modified":"2017-05-18T12:24:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T16:24:03","slug":"wait-were-the-gremlins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wait-were-the-gremlins\/","title":{"rendered":"Wait&#8230;We&#8217;re the Gremlins?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Elyce Arons, Chair of Grace Church School\u2019s Board of Trustees, the school mascot, the Gremlin, will go under review to be changed in the upcoming year. Ms. Arons has been the Chair of the Board of Trustees for four years and will step down at the end of this school year. Ever since her eldest daughter, Katy, entered GCS, Ms. Arons has played a role in the school\u2019s community through volunteering as well as being a PA representative for her daughters, three of whom currently attend the school.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-939 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/New_Crest_Transparent-300x298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"202\" height=\"201\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a part of the 7 year Long Range Plan set in 2015, the Board of Trustees is reviewing the mascot as an attempt to alter the branding of the school to include the newer high school campus in the school\u2019s identity and promote \u201cvertical integration.\u201d According to Ms. Arons, the reason why the Board approached the issue in the first place was due to the fact that two separate representations had begun to form, respective to each campus: the crest for the elementary school and the quatrefoil for the high school. After a bit of discussion, questions arose about the Gremlin: Where did it come from? How far back does it go? Is it really part of GCS tradition?<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-940\" src=\"http:\/\/schoolpress-blogs.myschoolcdn.com\/inside.gcschool.org\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/Screen-Shot-2017-05-18-at-12.21.02-PM-300x300.png\" width=\"194\" height=\"194\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After consulting alumni and other members of the GCS community, the board came to the conclusion that the Gremlin hadn\u2019t been around for too long, and most alumni barely remembered the mascot at all. In addition, the gremlin is defined as a \u201cmischief maker.\u201d The Board of Trustees decided that it might be better to find a more aspirational icon that would be easier for a school to rally behind; however, the process has proven to be more difficult than one might think.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Ms. Arons, a mascot for GCS must fit a list of criteria formed by the Board itself, the administration and the rest of the Grace Church School community. Some examples of these are that it must be \u201cgender neutral\u201d and \u201cfeel like Grace Church School.\u201d \u201cWe went round and round and round about it,\u201d said Ms. Arons, \u201cOne of the things that was on the top of the list for many people was the Griffin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, acco<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-941 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/Screen-Shot-2017-05-18-at-12.23.19-PM-237x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"237\" height=\"300\" \/>rding to Ms. Arons, there is a long way to go before anything is finalized. The next thing to do is \u201cconduct focus groups with different constituencies of the community, including current students\u201d to test out the favorability of different mascot suggestions, or even the idea of changing the mascot at all. \u201cNothing is set in stone yet;\u201d said Ms. Arons, \u201cWe\u2019re really in a fact finding stage right now.\u201d One of the most important groups in the process are alumni. The board is worried that many may be extremely attached to the gremlin, and changing it might distance them from the community. Current students and the administration will also play an important role in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As one of her concluding responses, Ms. Arons added the the mascot \u201chas to mean something to the school. It has to have reason for being.\u201d But until an icon that fits this title is found, the Gremlin will stay on the corner of our jerseys.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Elyce Arons, Chair of Grace Church School\u2019s Board of Trustees, the school mascot, the Gremlin, will go under review to be changed in the upcoming year. Ms. Arons&hellip; <span class=\"read-more-span\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wait-were-the-gremlins\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Wait&#8230;We&#8217;re the Gremlins?&#8221;<\/span> <span class=\"genericon genericon-next\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-f8","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}