Picture this: it is spirit week and the Class Council has posted a daily theme on Instagram for students to participate. You arrive at school in your glittery cowboy boots only to find that not a single other person has taken on the prompt. The embarrassment begins to set in, and you swear to never participate in school spirit again. This is a common predicament for Lexington High School students who look for a little fun during spirit week.
Historically, LHS has struggled with its lack of school spirit, something we should strive to improve by utilizing more effective ways to increase student awareness and involvement. This is an issue that matters more than the embarrassment of wearing a pair of glittery cowboy boots.
“I think the main things that affect our school spirit are an embodied and shared understanding of who we are and what we represent,” Jared Cassedy, the Lexington Public Schools Performing Arts Coordinator, said.
Spirit days also give a greater sense of belonging.
“A significant part of school spirit is that it allows you to be connected to the greater community – it helps you identify, be a part of, and invest in something greater than yourself,” Cassedy said.
To bring students together, groups like the Class Council and Hype Squad have worked to organize events that include grade-wide pep rallies and spirit weeks. However, this has not proven to be a foolproof plan due to a variety of factors—mainly, the lack of student participation.
“I always love pajama day and all of that, but I guess that is always a little bit disappointing because not a lot of people seem to participate,” Stacy McFadden, a counselor at LHS, said.
It may be that people are simply not aware of such events because they do not have the platforms used to broadcast this information.
“If you have Instagram, great, you will know about it. If you don’t, then it’s like, okay, where else am I supposed to know about it?” Selena Lin, a sophomore at LHS, said.
If school spirit organizers could expand information’s reach through other social media platforms, school-wide emails, or in-school flyers, they could mitigate this issue.
Another explanation for the limited involvement in spirit events is the sheer size of the student body. LHS is home to over 2,000 students with an average of about 550 students per grade. It may seem impossible to form a community with such a large number of people. However, students taking the initiative to go out and support each other makes a huge difference.
“The more that the students can be involved in promoting school spirit, the better. I think if the adults do it, then it doesn’t really have as much meaning,” McFadden said.
All in all, LHS’s school spirit relies on student initiative and engagement. Its absence has not gone unnoticed by neither the teachers nor the students, but that does not mean it has to stay that way. By finding other ways to spread the message of spirit opportunities, and more importantly, genuinely wanting to connect with others as fellow students, we can move towards building an environment that positively impacts the way we feel socially and academically.
