Trying to sort out the issues, let alone the feelings, associated with Gill-Montague Regional School District’s “Indians” mascot can be challenging.

But the picture should be clearer with respect to the “Tomahawk Chop” — a way cheerleaders and pep band charged up the football team’s fans, until the School Committee banned the practice in 2009, that is.

The School Committee at that time concluded correctly that the gesture, however innocently employed, was offensive to Native Americans. The committee chose to ban the practice, specifically citing the band and cheerleaders in the minutes of the meeting, although the discussion preceding the vote implied the ban would apply to all school-sponsored groups.

That was well and good, and concern over the chop faded. But, unfortunately, school officials never codified the school board vote into a written policy that was spelled out in the student handbook or athletic codes. So, many in the community became confused and upset when their football team was criticized for using the chop at the Thanksgiving Day game — for violating a policy that was actually hard to find.

It seems clear that most people understood the gesture is offensive and “banned” — as even the team’s coach stopped it when he noticed.

But Superintendent Michael Sullivan had to dig into meeting minutes from seven years ago to discover the ban did technically apply to all student groups — not just the cheerleaders and band mentioned overtly in those minutes. Sullivan cited a reference to placing the chop ban under the school district’s anti-discrimination policy, which does apply to all school groups. Recorder coverage at the time also mentions the ban would apply to school groups.

We wish the policy had been codified clearly and disseminated widely in 2009. That way, there would have been less cause for confusion and distress for those who support the team mascot and felt the football players had been unfairly criticized by the superintendent.

During Sullivan’s report about the game, he said the concern was not about broken rules or punishing people, but rather about students needing more education to understand the offensive nature of the chop.

“This brings up the fact that we need some more clarity about this stuff,” he said. Indeed. Clarity about the policy and the reasons for it.

So, we were happy to see that the school board this week fixed that oversight by voting unanimously to rewrite the policy and to add specific language to ban the practice by any school group, and we hope to put the policy in the student handbook.

Meanwhile, the debate and educational forums about the related Indians mascot debate continues. After the board decides whether to keep or change the mascot, it may also revisit the Tomahawk Chop policy, although we think that should remain a settled issue.