Photo by: Abbie Ramirez
Every year during football season pep rallies get people excited and ready for the upcoming game. This year the pep rallies have not been catching many people’s attention, are not as entertaining as they once were, and are hard to go to.
The time the event is scheduled for is difficult to make for some students and teachers. Bus arrival times and traffic can be unpredictable, while practice for sports can run late. Also, teachers and students could have tutoring in the morning. All these factors can keep students and staff alike from enjoying the event.
Another factor is the pep rallies are held weekly. It can get to a point where it seems repetitive. The skits and activities seem to revolve around the same thing causing disinterest. The “games” that are suppose to encourage crowd participation, are met with unresponsiveness and boredom.
Lastly, there is little student and staff involvement. The pep rallies usually have the same people participating in the activities. The football players compete against one another or a coach. While the cheerleaders assist or are in the events. Students are on the sides talking, walking around, or spectating.
To increase school spirit the pep rallies should give prizes out for competitions, involve more of the school, hold a pep rally every other week, and hold them at different times. Having the pep rallies every other week can have students curious and anticipating the event. The different times that the pep rallies can be held is in the afternoon or during a class period. This will allow more students and teachers to be able to attend. In order to get more students to participate, not only can the pep rally coordinators create more interactive games, they could also give out prizes for volunteers. They could also do a raffle, where students pay a dollar per raffle ticket and if you win, your name will be announced at the pep rallies and will receive a prize. Not only will all of this be beneficial to getting people to participate, the people in charge of the pep rallies can have more time to plan and get set up for the day.
The highschool is capable of showing school spirit; for instance look at the blue crew. There are some changes that need to be made for pep rallies to achieve their goal of exciting the school. For right now though, pep rallies will receive little positive response.
