By Crystal Earl
School spirit is the sense of identity and community shared by members of a school. It is taking time to support your school’s integrity and believing that its good name is a direct reflection upon yourself. Essentially, school spirit is what brings the school together.
At our school, however, there is a distinct lack of school spirit. The majority of the student body does not see a correlation between the school’s achievements and their own.
For instance, those who play sports take pride in their school and their teams, while those who don’t walk around oblivious to the fact that athletic teams are even playing.
Some of our football and basketball games get a fair amount of spectators, but that depends upon who we are playing. We should have enough school spirit to want to support our student athletes no matter whom they are playing, not just when we compete against Kennedy High School or El Camino High School.
Other sports, such as tennis, volleyball, golf, and water polo, however, have very low attendance even though they are just as successful, if not more, and are also fun to watch.
Even beyond the realm of athletics, ticket sales for school-wide events tend to be low. Often, the Associated Student Body (ASB) has to extend ticket deadlines just to meet their requirements in order to host the event. We have had to cancel events with too few ticket sales, such as the staff versus student basketball game at the beginning of the year.
Last week’s Spirit Week showed just how low our spirit is. In each of your classes, you might have seen three people dressed up. Though the teams and clubs participated more heavily, like ASB and cheer, the general population did not seem to care enough to put in the effort as a whole.
“It is evident that our student body lacks school spirit as seen through low morale and attendance at school events. Students at Granada aspire for academic excellence and scholastic achievement, but they deserve to have moments of stress relief and relaxation,” ASB junior president, Ezra Leauanae said.
An easy and effective way to raise school spirit is to have some healthy competition. Give something to the student with the most school spirit such as gifts certificates or a prize.
Another way to raise school spirit would be creating positions like Athlete or Student of the Week or to be recognized at pep rallies, in the announcements, or even in a video during announcements. This might encourage students to perform well but also to have school spirit when people they know are recognized.
The school could also fairly easily set up some sort of showcase for people with school spirit like a bulletin board with pictures. The school’s social media team could take this up as well posting students with great school spirit even if they hadn’t won any awards.
Finally, the school could attempt to get more faculty involved in showcasing school spirit. Students enjoy seeing their teachers proud of the school. So we should work on getting more faculty to dress for Spirit Week or going to games or events. Maybe the faculty need the same sort of incentives we as students to for participation whether that is prizes or social media fame.
For a school with such a strong reputation both academically and athletically, the lack of spirit and enthusiasm we show to be a part of its community and part of what makes it so great is unfortunate.
The Plaid Press 