Since 1989, Spirit Week has been one of Westminster’s most cherished traditions, adored by students, families, and faculty and staff alike. Recently, however, the fierce competition between grades, as well as student scrutiny of the fairness of the week’s scoring, has tainted the purity of the year’s most loved event.
Since the event started, students from each respective grade have always scrutinized scoring procedures, and recently, the lack of transparency from spirit week administrators. For instance, up until the 2012-2013 school year, spirit week points, based on dress-ups, games, big events, and more, were tallied daily for the entirety of the student body to see. After that year, and until the 22-23 school year, that changed, and points were kept secret, only revealed to the student body at the end of the week when winners were announced.
This year, however, public point tallying is back, much to the delight of the student body. Junior Carissa Mitchell appreciates the fact that “nobody can point fingers at anybody and say that they’re messing with the points,” as has been done in the recent past.
In addition to increased scrutiny over scoring, Mrs. Brown, Westminster’s director of student life and head Spirit Week coordinator, is concerned with the recent trend of behavioral issues relating to the ‘extracurricular’ activities involved with Spirit Week. For instance, in Brown’s mind, the longstanding Junior-Senior rivalry, which involves TP’ing, spiteful chants, and vicious competition has tainted what she and Westminster believe Spirit Week should be. Westminster’s Spirit Week handbook states that “the purpose of Spirit Week is for class members to work together to build grade-level and school-wide community through vigorous but friendly competition against other grades.” That, compared with the student body’s idea of what Spirit Week should be, “beat the juniors” (or seniors), are conflicting ideas causing problems for Brown and the rest of the spirit week administration.
In order to tame the dangerous and damaging aspects of spirit week, Brown and a panel of Westminster staff deduct up to 50 points from each grade’s point total for each violation, which includes “pulling down or defacing decor” and “disruptions or disrespect.”
Still, the divide between staff and student visions of what spirit week should be is ever growing. Many of Westminster’s teachers and staff believe that the competition of Spirit Week has gone too far, while many students believe that spiteful chants, TP’ing, and fierce competition between grade levels is a right of passage of sorts.
Regardless, anyone you talk to at Westminster would tell you the same thing: Spirit Week is the best week of the year at Westminster. In the future, though, should more steps be taken by students and administration alike to ensure that Spirit Week returns to being a safe environment for competition instead of a bloodthirsty inner-grade rivalry? Depends on who you ask.
