Spirit shutdown
West High School’s environment has been heavily affected by lack of student spirit.
After two years of not experiencing a normal school environment, students at West High School are feeling the lack of excitement and motivation. According to Derek Perry, senior Vice President, COVID was the main factor.
“When people have to stay home for like two years, it just really creates a mental gap. They see what school spirit can be like, but it’s just been so long since people have actually put in effort to do it, so they’re like ‘what do I do, what should I do to even like sign up, be involved in that,’ kind of thing,” Perry said.
Students are encountering poor communication throughout the school as well, with events and sports, it’s becoming difficult for students to find help and engage in activities.
“I think we need to better plan stuff and let it be known that we’re doing it and then like get kids involved. Because mainly it’s the fact that like, we do stuff so last minute,” Perry said.
There is more focus on minor matters, causing the lack of spirit in the students. Representatives for the student body also play an important role, not only school staff.
“We’re so focused on academics than making sure our students are here and the attendance and things like that. That makes it harder for us to put the energy in time to uplift the culture, you know, to create a fun school environment. I really wanna get back to that.” Hurst said. “I’ll also put how we got a late start with getting our offices in place and it’s really important for our students that represent our student body to advise all of us.”
Some school staff believe that there hasn’t been enough amount of school spirit at West High for a while.
“It’s true that through the pandemic we had to have more focus on getting kids here engaged with learning so now the challenge is going to be to get back some school spirit. West has struggled for quite some time with school spirit and sometimes that comes down to different factors.” Mrs. Turhune said.