When students return to Brockton High School on Sept. 6, they’ll no longer be greeted by housemasters and assistant housemasters. The jobs are the same, but the leaders of the school’s four houses are now called deans and assistant deans.

The Brockton School Committee made the change recently, following the lead of Harvard University and Newton North and South high schools, which also scrapped the housemaster title in favor of the less politically charged dean designation within the past year.

Critics had complained that the term housemaster had unsavory racist connotations of slavery, although others argued that the master referred to teachers, not overseers.

“The thought behind the name change is that if a concern or sensitivity was raised about the name by any student, family, or member of the community, there was no reason not to change it,’’ said Michele Bolton, spokeswoman for the Brockton school district.

Bolton said the housemaster title had been used at the high school as far back as 1970 and the administration had been discussing whether to change it for the past year and a half.

Johanna Seltz can be reached at seltzjohanna@gmail.com.