Highland Park middle schoolers, it’s time to put on your plaid.
The Highland Park ISD board of trustees voted at its March 31 meeting to switch the middle and intermediate schools’ mascot from the Raiders to the Scots.
The change was overwhelmingly favored by the community. Seventy-eight percent of the 2,107 parents, staff, students, and community members who responded to a March survey favored the move.
The mascot issue was of high interest to HPISD families. Almost 1,700 parents participated in the Scots or Raiders survey, more than double the number who completed the district’s school experience survey in December. There were also about 500 more responses from parents to the mascot survey than to the district’s survey on its 2026-27 school calendar.
Parent-teacher organization leaders said that they hope the change will infuse positive energy into the middle and intermediate campus and remind students that they are held to the same high standards as the high schoolers already wearing blue and gold.
“It makes sense to me to say that once you start playing sports or competing in band or debate, you enter as a Scot,” MIS parent-teacher organization president-elect Brooke Garner said. “And that holds you to a greater sense of responsibility and accountability.”
The district will not need to use operational dollars to make the mascot change. The MIS/HPMS campus was already slated to receive a fresh coat of paint, new mascot graphics, replacement athletic uniforms, and numerous other upgrades through bond funds approved by voters in Nov. 2024.
“This is the best time to make this shift because we are already addressing a lot of those line items and color schemes,” board secretary Ellen Lee explained. “It’s just a function of what color they will be.”
While the future holds more plaid for middle and intermediate students, it may not yet be time to recycle vintage Raider wear.
Garner said she would like to find a way of preserving the schools’ past and honoring the Raider story.
“Raiders has a history,” she said. “And that shouldn’t be taken away.”
In other business, the board of trustees:
- Heard an update on the district’s efforts to ensure that its staff receives competitive benefits and compensation, as well as information about teacher evaluations and stay interviews with teachers and paraprofessionals who have been with HPISD for at least two years.
- Approved a request for a memorial at Bradfield Elementary honoring students who were lost in the July 4 flooding at Camp Mystic.
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