For the first time in its 105-year history, Franklin will be known as the Lightning.

As one of 10 siblings to graduate from Franklin High School, Scott Santangelo knows what it means to be a Quaker.

He’s even spent most of his professional life at Franklin, working in the building for 29 years, the last 20 as athletic director.

So Santangelo knows that this fall, when the school’s teams compete as the Lightning after a century of being known as the Quakers, will be an adjustment for many.

“I know there’s a lot of alumni out there who aren’t happy with it, but change is hard,” Santangelo said.

School officials anticipated that a change was coming in the last few years. Parents who are members of the Quaker faith filed two complaints with Portland Public Schools, saying that using a name associated with an organized religion was “inappropriate, offensive and unconstitutional,” according to the district.

It led the district to adopt a policy that prohibits the use of names that are religious in nature. The school board voted in June to change the name to Lightning, one of the names proposed by a community survey along with Ambassadors, Chargers, Falcons, Firs and Thunderbolts.

“We had stopped using the Quaker on the logos and on the uniforms two, three years ago on the event that change was coming,” Santangelo said. “We just went with ‘Franklin.’ I think we have one set of uniforms that need to be replaced, JV girls basketball. Other than that, we haven’t had ‘Quakers’ on anything for quite a while.”

The rebranding process includes elements of the new school building, which opened last year. The wall padding in the gym still says “Quakers,” as does part of the scoreboard. The “Quakers” center circle of the old gym floor – repurposed as part of the floor for the commons area – has been removed and will be replaced.

It is unlikely, though, that “Quakers” will ever entirely go away from the school, which opened in 1914.

“It’s part of the history,” said Santangelo, who graduated from the school in 1979. “It’s not gone, it’s just changed. There are still people who want Franklin Quakers t-shirts, so the boosters are selling them, which is not completely attached to the school. We got calls from all over the country: ‘Do you have any Quaker gear left?’”

With little time to rebrand, none of the school’s fall sports teams will wear “Lightning” on their uniforms.

School staff members have been issued “Franklin Lightning” t-shirts to wear for when students arrive this week to begin the year. Santangelo, who changed the Franklin athletics Twitter handle to “FHSLightning” this week, anticipates a smooth transition to the new name.

“To me, there’s been no drawback,” he said. “The kids are adapting. The kids are fine. They’re resilient. The staff is fine. We’re adapting pretty good.

“I just tried to tell people, when the process was happening, ‘Let it happen.’ Everybody gets a chance to say what they believe in. Everybody has the right to their beliefs. When we start squelching that, we’re not doing a very good job.”

Franklin High School in Seattle continues to use Quakers as its mascot.