Spirit Slump

That time of year comes around. Clubs start setting up for their events. The excitement of being able to host something about what they love…only to have it cancelled last minute due to lack of participants. 

School spirit has seen many changes over the years, especially since the pandemic. Students have differing opinions on how important they think school spirit is. 

“I feel school spirit is how passionate the students are to be part of that school,” explained junior Jayden Hughes. “For example, during games and other events, you're cheering and you're involved in what the school is doing.”

Things that had been previously popular, such as Val-o-grams and Winter Formal, have had to be cancelled last minute because there weren’t enough students signing up in time to reach the minimum attendance. 

“I definitely have seen a change in school spirit over the years,” shared junior Sofi Araujo. “I feel like school spirit definitely has died. For example, this year, I'm pretty sure Winter Formal got cancelled because they barely sold any tickets, whereas before they would have sold enough.”

Many believe that the decline in school spirit could be caused by overworking and stress. Fewer and fewer students go to events due to lack of time given school, homework, and jobs.

“We as students are being pushed to do more and more, especially in sports, which is making us exhausted and less likely to do more because we simply do not have the time,” said senior Jayden Bilby.

Since there is so much homework and extracurriculars, some students don’t feel that going to events is as important as before, when they had more time. 

“It's because kids today are doing whatever they need to do, but I just feel like they are really busy and school spirit is not the main priority,” Mr. Ketcham explained. “It's up to the kids if it needs to be a priority, but a lot of kids have decided that they need to do all their stuff before they do school spirit.”

Many clubs are trying to find new ways to raise their attendance for events. 

“I think that clubs can start advertising outside of JA to be part of the actual community, and not just with the people within JA,” Hughes commented.

Lots of students and teachers have their preferred events to go to, and try their best to make it to those events.

“I mean, I love going to the sporting events. I love attending the plays and the shows, those are probably the big things I do,” shared Mr. Ketcham. “I try to go to at least one or two games in all the sports I know kids playing in so I can see them and enjoy watching them perform in the sport of the show, or the talent, the skill they are really good at.”

If students can, they should definitely go to school-hosted events so that they can have some time to hang out with their friends and take a second to just breathe.

“Get your homework done and go have fun,” advised Bilby. “Enjoy the high school experience and be kids!”