Following the previous fall Spirit Week organized by Palo Alto High School’s Associated Student Body, the first-ever spring version this week of the popular event will include rallies and activities during lunch on Tuesday in the Big Gym and Thursday on the football field. 

As a result of the scale-backs of this year’s fall Spirit Week because of student misbehavior, ASB spirit commissioner Evie Kramer said she wanted ASB to host more rallies as part of Spring Spirit. 

“We [students] just didn’t have as many rallies as I expected,” Kramer said. “So I wanted to add a couple more this week, and I felt like we deserved some new hype energy on campus.” 

According to Kramer, Spring Spirit will include two rallies as well as daily dress-up themes across all grades in an effort to give students the opportunity to indulge in more spirit activities than in the fall. Kramer said this week’s rallies will not include a week-long grade-based competition like in the fall and will help students unite under common dress-up themes and events rather than competing. 

“We [ASB] focused more of our energy on creating unity during the [Spring] Spirit Week, which is one of the reasons why I think admin was willing to do another Spirit Week,” Kramer said. 

ASB President Ashley Meyer said Spring Spirit’s main goal is to bring students across all grades together, rather than using competitions to pit them against each other. Spring Spirit also brings another opportunity for students to express their school spirit in the second semester instead of just in the fall, Meyer said. 

“We wanted this week to be a week for all the grades to unify as one instead of it being separated with different dress-up themes,” Meyer said. “We wanted a fun way for students to get involved again, because normally during second semester towards the spring, things kind of die. Everyone kind of just wants to get off school.”  

According to Meyer, ASB has also been working with ignite2unite, an organization that helps leaders gather certain skills to increase bonding efforts in their communities. 

 “We had ignite2unite a few weeks ago and we debriefed [the lessons] in ASB class and talked about things that we can use from that workshop in this Spring Spirit,” Meyer said. “We’ll definitely be using those things moving forward, next year and with other spirit activities.” 

Activities Director Steven Gallagher said ASB has been planning a spring semester Spirit Week for over a year. 

“It was a goal of ASB last year to have something that’s spirit-related in the second semester,” Gallagher said.

Kramer said students have worked hard to improve their behavior at sporting events, and she hopes her peers can maintain their good behavior leading up to and throughout Spring Spirit.

“We [Paly] are a campus that has a lot of school pride and I think that in the past, it just hasn’t necessarily been channeled in the most productive ways,” Kramer said. “We [students] really have shown leadership and stepping up by showing a lot of respect and a conscientious attitude about our community.” 

The first Spring Spirit rally will be held during lunch tomorrow in the Big Gym to feature a staff versus student volleyball game, followed by a student relay race during lunch on Thursday at the football field.