Freedom Screams For School Spirit

[Opinion by Henry Kim]

School spirit is an event that educational institutions hold to help boost enthusiasm for students at the school.

Freedom High School is a very passionate school when it comes to school spirit. There are endless Freedom Eagle emblems plastered throughout the hallways to showcase the school’s spirit. Freedom also regularly holds school spirit competitions against each grade level to encourage the support for their schools by rewarding them and announcing the winners on the morning announcements. This passion for school spirit is particularly obvious with the multiple pep rallies held every year.

Planning pep rallies are a difficult yet effective way to express school spirit. However, it requires a lot of manpower and thorough planning ahead of time.

So the fact that Freedom holds multiple every year shows their devotion for the school and its students. The pep rallies, specifically, helps to boost the school’s pride when representing themselves against other schools and is a great uplifting for sports teams ahead of big games.

That’s not all of the perks the pep rally has: the school commonly sees mini games such as musical chairs, tug of war, etc played by the sports teams or the students. There are also many entertaining performances put on by the students themselves as well. This can range from the dance clubs performing, the band playing music, or the freedom cheer team showing off their skills.

This surely sounds like a great way for students to bond with each other and create special memories. However, as great as this pep rally sounds, there are its downsides. Many students frequently skip the day of the pep rally by staying at home or going to the library during the pep rally. This can be for a number of reasons such as: the pep rally being too loud, gym being too congested with hundreds of people, uncomfortable in a big crowd, or simply just not wanting to participate in the pep rally.

So this presents the question: Should students be allowed to leave/ skip the pep rally?

Yes, students should certainly be allowed to leave pep rallies early simply because they shouldn’t be forced to attend a big school gathering they don’t feel comfortable in or don’t want to be apart of. It’s unfair to force students to attend the pep rally as they may have private reasons for not wanting to attend. It can also be as simple as some students just not interested in the pep rally and have no interest in it and can find a better use of their own time.

If the school were to force the pep rally, then a downside that may occur is by forcing students to participate in school spirit activities it could potentially push them farther away from school spirit and less likely to engage in other activities held throughout the year. This is why it is best to keep the pep rallies not mandatory and leave the students the option to opt-out if they want so that schools don’t push students past where they draw the line of comfort.