When a school has pride in itself, it is able to gather as a community and everyone is able to feel welcomed. The school provides the opportunity to make everyone feel like they’re a part of something, but it seems that the students are not responding. The spirit shown from students, especially when compared to the students of the district’s other schools, is incredibly lackluster, and it might be for a good reason.
On days that don’t fall in spirit weeks, the only spirit to be found is through shirts from a Central sports team. During Homecoming and Keep in School Spirit (KISS) week, only the most spirited are known to dress up. Palak Verma believes that those who don’t do the bare minimum, however, are going all out for it.
“We have quality but not quantity,” Verma said.
While we have a small section of students who are very proud, students at Parkway West are all very proud. According to West senior Emma Stewart, her school is a leader in school pride.
“Homecoming week was definitely a bigger deal at West than at Central, as far as involvement and excitement and everyone dressing up. From what I’ve seen and heard, no other school is quite like West in that aspect,” Stewart said.
Stewart believes that students who attend West participate so much in their spirit days because they aren’t ordinary spirit days. For their 2012 Homecoming, West had dress-up days such as ‘Future Occupation Day’ and ‘Board Game Day’.
One reason that Central students may not have as much pride as other schools is because of the repetition in the spirit days. Every year we have pajama day and grade color day, both of which can normally be seen outside of spirit week. The lack of interesting ideas for spirit day discourages people from dressing up—what’s the point in a dress up day if you’re just wearing normal clothes?
Pep rallies are another area where we lack spirit. Senior Becca Cohen, who recently transferred to Central from North, says that many students at North attended the pep rallies even though they weren’t a required activity.
“Generally, everyone loves the pep rallies,” North senior Danielle Feinstein said. “It’s a really hype night.”
While the performances from teachers, cheerleaders, dancers, and step teams are equal throughout the district, there still seems to be many students at Central who leave school early and skip the pep rally.
“The pep rallies and other things take time away from learning,” Verma says. “It isn’t relevant.”
The lack of enthusiasm in the school can be looked at as disappointing, but the way in which we try to encourage and demonstrate school spirit isn’t the best, either. If students made the choices of what to do they would participate in them more actively. They didn’t just select a theme for Homecoming, they selected the whole activity.
Stewart says that the student government at West is very responsive to the wants of the students in order to keep them involved. About four years ago, West got rid of their King of Hearts Dance and replaced it with a Glow Dance at the whim of the students.
To more effectively represent our school, students should take note from the other very spirited Parkway schools. Not only should we look to our neighbors, we should be asking our peers what they want most instead of sticking to a dry format. If students want to feel involved, they have to take the first step in making it so it’s something they want to be involved in.
