At Bonita Vista High School (BVH), the Associated Student Body (ASB) organizes spirit days as a way to get students more involved on campus. On Sept. 12, ASB posted on their instagram @bvhs_asb about a new competition, “clash of the classes” that involves students participating in spirit days to rally up points while competing against the other class levels.
“[The class competition] was something we have been wanting to do, but we did not know how. Over summer at ASB camp, we talked to other school officers that did it, we asked a ton of questions and decided to implement it here,” ASB President and senior Alexis Acosta said.
Over summer camp, Acosta and the other officers came up with this system inspired by the advice they received from other schools that also attended. Following the start of the 2023-2024 school year, the proposed idea was brought up to temporary ASB advisor and math teacher Christina Ada after previous ASB advisor Patricia Perez’s departure.
“I think [the competition] is a great way to promote social media [and] to get students more involved. I have been teaching here [for] a long time and they used to do it on a regular basis. Every spirit week, they would let them know which class was ahead and there was always [an] end of the year [celebration] recognizing the class with the most spirit,” Ada said.
Since this system was an old tradition, Ada has no predictions as to how this will affect the current generation of students. With the spirit point system making a comeback to BVH this 2023-2024 school year, Ada is curious to see how this system will affect spirit at BVH and how it will compare to previous years.
“It is too early to tell [how this will affect spirit at BVH]. I guess we will have to see what happens once we have a couple more spirit weeks to see if participation grows,” Ada said.
With no predictions on how student participation will be impacted, spirit levels at BVH could potentially rise once the system officially kicks off after the next couple of upcoming spirit weeks. Junior Michelle MacGaffey believes that spirit should be something that everyone should try to participate in, even without the competition.
“Everyone should participate [in the new competition] because that is how you get people to participate. If no one dresses up, no one is going to want to [participate],” MacGaffey said. “I love dressing up since it gives me the opportunity to wear clothes I might not normally wear.”
Even though showing school spirit is optional, many go out of their way to participate. This leaves speculation as to how much this system will impact current school spirit as students are already showing their spirit.
“I do not think it is going to have an effect, just because I have heard absolutely nobody talk about it. I have also seen nobody post with the hashtag, so I personally do not think it will have that much of an effect,” MacGaffey said.
Even with suspicion that this system won’t affect school spirit, ASB still aims to increase spirit through the use of this system. Though showing school spirit is not a requirement, many students at BVH are still encouraged to participate.
“School spirit was not something that was a priority. […] I just think that participating in spirit activities and getting that participation high, is something that is really important. I want people to like school and to want to participate and I want school to be a fun thing,” Acosta said.
