A Long Island school district will be able to hold onto its “Warriors” name an extra year — as it continues to fight a state ban on Native American imagery in mascots and logos.

Wantagh was granted an extension until June 2027 to come into compliance with the state ban, according to a letter sent by the board of education to district parents on Tuesday.

“We just really want to keep the name. It means a lot to the community, means a lot to the school,” Superintendent John McNamara told The Post Wednesday.

“We had done a district survey back when this issue first arose and and, overwhelmingly, well over 85% of the community wanted to keep the Warrior name,” he added of the 2023 mandate.

The letter added that the extension will allow students to remain under the Warrior name “while we continue our advocacy.”

“We understand how deeply the Warrior identity is woven into the fabric of the Wantagh community — our commitment to preserving the ‘Warrior’ name remains steadfast — we will continue to advocate for our traditions,” the letter added.

McNamara claimed rebranding from Warriors to a potential replacement such as Wolves would cost the district an upward of $700,000.

“Budgets are tight,” he said.

“We have a lot of other maintenance facilities issues that we want to continue to address. We don’t want to divert any funds from those items.”

This marks the second extension granted by the New York Education Department for the Warriors since the state Board of Regents ordered public schools to scrap Native American mascots, team names and logos by 2025.

The extension effectively buys the district time while it continues to battle Albany over the ban in both state court and in a federal appeal after a judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the ban.

“We’re waiting, really to see what the outcome of the litigation is to ultimately make a decision,” McNamara said.

Long Island school districts Connetquot and Massapequa have also been tangling with the state over coming into compliance.
The Connetquot School District initially agreed to drop its longtime “Thunderbirds” name and rebrand as the “T-Birds” as part of a settlement with the state to comply with the mandate.

But that compromise backfired when the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights ruled the district had violated the law by eliminating the Native American-linked names while allowing mascots “derived from other racial or ethnic groups,” like Dutchmen.

Warriors is also suitable in cases like Chenango Valley near Binghamton for not having an indigenous affiliation, according to the superintendent.

“I think there’s some frustration on the part of the school, the board, the community, that there are other districts in the state that use the warrior nickname, but because it’s not associated with the Native American imagery, they’re allowed to keep it,” he said.

In Massapequa, school officials are locked in a bitter legal feud against the state in an effort to preserve the high school’s “Chiefs” name, arguing the mandate oversteps Albany’s authority. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit on procedural grounds, but the district has continued to push back publicly, and in court.

Wantagh’s school board said in its letter that it would “continue to monitor national developments, including findings from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights,” noting those rulings could have “significant implications” for how mandates like the mascot ban are enforced despite losing in court.
State education officials, however, have shown no signs of retreating either.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state Dems have previously defended the regulation as a necessary step to eliminate stereotypes and promote inclusion, maintaining that districts must retire Native American mascots unless they obtain approval from a federally recognized tribe.

Hochul was also ripped for not recognizing the Long Island based Montaukett tribe at the end of 2025.

Some Western New York advocates have sided with the ban.

“Using people for mascots is wrong,” John Kane, a Native activist and member of the state’s Indigenous Mascot Advisory Council, previously told The Post.

A lawyer for the Native American Guardians Association, called New York’s ban on such mascots “the dumbest law of all time” and vowed to fight the “racially discriminatory policy” they believe hinders the celebration of their history.