After flaunting their sparkly green and white outfits for the last day of Spirit Week, Palo Alto High School students are calling this week a success following Friday afternoon’s final rally at the Earl Hansen Viking Stadium, where the class floats were presented, and spirit dances were performed.

Seniors placed first for their class dance, followed by sophomores, juniors and freshmen, respectively. Juniors earned first place for their class float, seniors and sophomores tied for second place and freshmen took third place. The total points earned across Spirit Week were 18,800 points for seniors, 16,300 points for juniors, 14,500 points for sophomores and 10,600 points for freshmen.

According to senior and Associated Student Body Vice President Mike Song, he was impressed by the organization and performance of his class spirit dance.

“[There were] many people that were super coordinated and it was cool to see everyone getting involved in this,” Song said. “I know everyone’s been practicing so hard for the past few weeks and it’s great to see we had such a large turnout.”

Sophomore Alex Isayama shared a similar experience, and said he was blown away by what his class managed to accomplish.

“I know that the classmates that danced really put a lot of time and effort into practices and just seeing the result, I think it was really good,” Isayama said. “The sophomore class had the best dance overall. Every single one of the dancers was just really just into it and we were full of spirit.”

Isayama said the spirit and bonding among sophomores significantly developed across Spirit Week.

“In the beginning, for the first few days, many of the classes really doubted us,” Isayama said. “But in the end, we pulled through. The class dance really showed our true selves in how we performed.”

According to Song, he commends the senior class for winning Spirit Week.

“Overall, we’ve done really well this week,” Song said. “We won games and ‘best-dressed’ almost every day. We’ve just been leading with a substantial lead, especially compared to last year, [when] we weren’t doing as well. I’m super satisfied and proud of our performance this year.”

Reflecting over the past week, Assistant Principal Michelle Steingart said she appreciates how the spirit week events encourage school unity and class interconnection.

“I have enjoyed spirit weeks since I started here over 20 years ago,” Steingart said. “I see students who usually don’t love coming to school come and have a really great time and get into it. There’s a lot of camaraderie that happens within classes and the spirit this year has been really positive.”