By Kate Deming
Spirit week at LREI has always been “a nice break from the stressful second trimester,” says Student Body President Ajahni Jackson. But how will that change in a year that has already changed everything students know to be true?
In past years, spirit week has consisted of themed dress-up days, including twin day, character day, era day, pajama day, and spirit day. These days also included games and challenges, such as trivia contests and the most anticipated, yet considerably challenging lip sync battle. The lip sync battle has allowed grades to collaborate on creating a performance for the entire school using a mashup of songs and unique choreography. Faculty members also participate in the battle, making the competition fierce among the student body and administration.
When reflecting on the past years’ spirit weeks in contrast to the current situation, Jackson stated, “I know that for the past few years there have been plenty of people who couldn’t participate as much as they wanted to for a variety of reasons. Maybe they were sick during spirit week, or they got their costumes too late, or they just didn’t have the courage that they do now to participate in the lip sync. Now, since the world is virtual, they’re never going to have the opportunity to experience a real in-person spirit week. You know it’s a different energy in person than it is online and that’s not something that I personally am prepared to confront.”
Engaging in spirit week activities has been both challenging and elementary for grades in these past few years. Stella Story, an LREI sophomore, reflected on her grades participation last year stating, “My grade has always been hesitant with participating, and last year during spirit week, although my friends and I dressed up, I didn’t see a lot of my other classmates doing that. I feel that it also might have had to do with the fact that we were freshmen and didn’t want to stand out.”
On the flip side, Jackson reflected on his grade explaining, “In the past few years my grade has had a relatively high level of engagement, even in freshman year, with either half or 3/4 of the grade participating in the costume days every year. The lip sync battle has been harder to get participants for because it’s a lot to ask people to sign up for something like that. But, we’ve still had more participants than usual each year, including freshman year.”
As academic, emotional, and social burn-out due to the adjustment to online and hybrid learning in a global pandemic has spread like wildfire throughout grades, there is much speculation throughout the student body concerning engagement in spirit week. “I can see how burnt-out my grade is, and even though I’m an online student I can tell that the engagement is going to be low this year,” expressed Story.
Student government has been brainstorming and collaborating with each other and their grades on ways to combat this issue and translate the energy of spirit week into an online space. LREI Freshman Zoe Wojnicki, who serves as a 9th-grade representative explained, “In student government, we’ve really been working hard to try to bring all the energy and even all the spirit from spirit week, even in these troubling times where we have to do everything over zoom and socially distanced. We have been planning lots of logistics so that the costume days will be on students in person-days, the games and trivia will be on students virtual days, and we’ve even planned for a virtual lip-sync battle for this year. We are keeping the motivation and competitiveness of spirit week alive through great prizes like gift cards and an ice cream truck!”
LREI’s Student Body President is determined to bring this beloved LREI tradition to life on zoom, admitting that, “We are trying our very best to create something that will be fun and engaging for everyone, but we can’t please every student in the community. That’s super tough to come to terms with. Along with the additional pressure that comes along with this being a student government-led initiative, it makes it a bit difficult for us to stay motivated throughout the planning process.”
LREI’s virtual spirit week will take place the week of February 22nd, and as the student body continues to plan, practice, and choreograph their lip syncs and find their outfits for dress-up days, it will soon be revealed how spirit week looks on a virtual scale. Ajahni Jackson shared his parting thoughts on this year’s virtual spirit week stating, “No matter how hard it may get we are determined to create the best experience possible for the members of this community. And we truly hope that people enjoy what we put together.”
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Cover Image source: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZfNoyRgMrRO0DMT7vFZSJjZCzRX66SQP