School spirit is an essential part of the high school experience, from going to games to participating in clubs, there are many ways to be a part of your high school community.

There seems to be a huge lack of spirit this year, and it appears to be decreasing fast as new groups of students come in and the years go by. Attendance of the student body at school events is becoming a less normal thing, the stands are less crowded at games and students are not showing as much interest towards Swine Week. This event is the schools philanthropy week in which they raise money for a specific chosen charity, which is something that students usually take extreme pride in. 

In an age of technology and ways to constantly know everything that is going on, one would think the spirit would be gaining as the years go on, but as with most things, high school is not like it is in the movies. Students seem to be so invested in phones and social media that they don’t participate in school events as much as they used to.  

One of the problems affecting how people participate in school is a fear of judgement from peers. Students are just trying to fit in with those around them, so they just go along with the status quo and follow what everyone else is doing. If a majority is not participating in school functions, others are very unlikely to join in.

Dress up days are also a huge part of seeing the dedication the students have towards their school. Whether a student is the most dressed up of their class or simply wears a plaid shirt and calls themselves a cowboy, the participation of the kids is essential towards the success of the dress up day. Many students may not have clothes for more particular subjects such as angle vs. devil. To have a fully participating class there needs to be more interactive days with a wide variety of options to dress up for, such as Vine vs. Tik Tok to make it more trendy and relative to students.

Another problem could simply be stress. Many students would much rather focus on their grueling schedules and finishing homework that has been piled on them instead of derailing their focus away from academics and towards extracurriculars, which is a shame since high school should be more about the whole experience and not just the classes.

A lack of advertisement also seems to be a problem affecting participation among students. Usually there are signs throughout the school to further hype the students and inform them of upcoming events but this year almost all of the ad’s have been on students’ social media. When there are signs scattered throughout the school it makes it easier for students to remember that there is some type of event coming up.

An absence of assemblies is not only causing everyone to feel less morale than usual but the freshmen class especially are not being integrated into the usual Swine Week hype. Usually freshmen are able to become acquainted with how an assembly would work before the actual Swine Week assemblies, so this could cause a possible decline in participation and attendance at events.

With this lack of assemblies comes an absence of hype videos and less representation of many sports throughout the school. Sports such as soccer, track, swim and many others have all gone with little to no recognition during the assemblies this year. This is possibly making many of the student athletes feel left out because even though the school has become so inclusionary, it is exclusionary.

The students are also high schoolers trying to come up with the money to pay for expenses like gas and cars, and many of their parents no longer grant them money to attend these events. Even though the school is trying to make money, if they were to lower the tickets more students would probably attend the now cost prohibited events.

There may be many contributing factors towards a lack of school spirit this year and although there are some students that have high morale, the participation this year just feels way lower than the usual.

Contact Makinzy Todd at [email protected]