Demopolis City Schools are one step closer to the completion of the new system website after the DCS Board of Education approved a logo Monday night.

The logo is a take off of one of three design options presented by SchoolCenter less than a month ago. The original design features Demopolis spelled out in a script font with the words “City Schools” in olive green. The D in Demopolis had an olive hanging off the backside to resemble an olive branch, an homage to the region’s vine and olive roots.

“They changed a few things and the board approved it (Monday) night,” Jeremiah Dial, Demopolis City Schools technology director, said.

Among the changes are the addition of a second olive branch that extends off the S in Demopolis. Additionally, the “City Schools” has been altered to a lighter shade of blue as opposed to the olive green it was originally.

The biggest change in the logo is the addition of a school motto, a phrasing offered by DCS employees Dana Freeman and Megan Maybin.

“We added a motto to it,” Dial said. “Actually, it’s our new motto. It’s something that a couple of the teachers came up with.

The motto speaks of the school and it speaks to education.”

The motto, “Enter to Succeed, Leave to Achieve” is emblazoned across the top of the logo, oriented to the inside of the D in Demopolis and just above the remainder of the word.

“They picked the one with the olive off the D. They added another and a vine to the end of the S. Everything flows a lot better now,” Dial, who admittedly was not pleased with the original drafts for the logo, said. “Adding the motto was the biggest thing. I’m pleased with how it looks. It is going to flow with this design.”

The decision to have a logo crafted for Demopolis City Schools was made in order to help the design of the new school system website.

“We wanted something people could look at that says, ‘Hey, that’s Demopolis City Schools.’ We’re rooted in the same goals and I think this logo says all that,” Dial said.

The adoption of a logo marks the completion of the first phase of the website design process.

“We’ve just finished our logo. That’s phase one. Now we’ve got to figure out how the school wants the web site to look,” Dial said.

Dial said the next phase of the design process will take shape Monday when the school system’s technology committee meets to discuss the aesthetics and functionality of the website.

After the committee offers its final suggestions, the waiting game will begin.

“Then it’s going to be another three or four weeks. It’s going a lot slower than I thought it would be. It’s very frustrating. Hopefully when it finishes it will be something nice and something we can be proud of,” Dial said.