With Spirit Week approaching on Monday, Palo Alto High School’s Associated Student Body is preparing for what many students regard as the “best week of the school year.”
Each day of Spirit Week has a designated theme that each class contributes to with its appearance, cheers and signs. Themes have been the same for many years, but this year has an exception: seniors will dress up in 2000s style — the decade in which many of them were born — instead of 90s style.
Below are class themes for each day of Spirit Week.
Spirit Week is hosted by the Palo Alto High School ASB’s Spirit Commissioners. This year, Spirit Commissioners Samantha Embersits and Sarah Mitz tackle the biggest week of the school year with the goal of unifying the entire student body including freshmen.
“I think that this year there is going to be a higher turnout because we made a video which has gotten people really hyped up and it has gotten the freshmen to be aware of spirit week … [ASB] is going to freshman advisories to get [the freshmen] to know about [Spirit Week],” Mitz said. “There’s going to be more people this year and [Spirit Week] is going to be really fun!”
Many students were disappointed to learn that the night rally has been removed from the Spirit Week schedule. According to Student Activities Director Matt Hall, the night rally has always been a temporary fill-in for the Advisory rally.
“The night rally was a substitute for the Advisory Thursday rally while the gym was being built,” said Hall. “We’re now going back to what we originally did which is the Thursday Advisory rally.”
Another reason the night rally was cancelled was due to students showing up intoxicated at last year’s rally, forcing administration to remain on campus past midnight, filling out paperwork, calling parents and the Palo Alto Police Department, according to Hall. “There were several, and by several I mean double digits, drunk students of various ages and grades that [administration] had to deal with,” Hall said.
Embersits is optimistic about the replacement advisory rally.
“We’re starting to put teachers into the competition during rallies. For one of the games for the three-point contest, the winner of the boys’ bracket will play against [physical education teacher and basketball coach] Peter Diepenbrock,” Embersits said. “I think it will be fun.”
With the brand new athletic facility, ASB will be taking advantage of the different indoor activities that can be incorporated into Spirit Week, such as the three-point contest. ASB will also introduce a few new games on Monday, but other than that, students can expect similar games from previous years, according to Mitz. The indoor rally will be held during Advisory on Thursday.
Students have the opportunity to represent their class during Spirit Week by participating in the games. Sign ups are on Schoology and in their class Facebook groups.