What happened to the yearly Pep Rallies?

Lujan Asturias (‘23)

Before the Covid-19 lockdown in the 2019-2020 school year, there were annual prep rallies that students attended at the beginning and end of the school year. However, there has not been a single prep rally since the 2020 winter pep rally.

A pep rally is a themed event that shows school spirit. It contains performances from several groups, and games that students in winter sports teams and staff participate in. This year, there are two planned pep rallies on January 27 and April 15. Both winter and spring pep rallies are different in terms of events that happen but they are both equally as entertaining.

“The winter one, traditionally is the winter sports teams and than we will have the class counsels compete in like minute to win it games… ultimately students counsel ends up working, the kids kind of decide the theme of the week because it will be a spirit week too, and than we give out the spirit cup at the end. We have a special bell schedule. [For] the spring pep rally… winter guard performs and they start us because [their] props, they always start us off, in addition to that we have the asian culture club who dances close to, after temptasian, so we get some of the temptation dancers to perform, we also have Mr. SBHS” said Mrs. Morris, an activities advisor.

In 2020, there was a pep rally that contained a student vs. teacher dodgeball game, a group of students that performed tik tok dances that were popular at the time, and other activities. This is a lively event that students before the pandemic experienced every year.

However, now that the learning environment has changed, there have been no recent pep rallies. That is not the only event that the pandemic has affected. Covid has prevented proms and graduation ceremonies from happening in the past. A New York Times article written in 2020 says “...for students in the class of 2020, the Covid-19 crisis arrived just as they were receiving college acceptance letters, dreaming about new jobs, gearing up to leave high school behind– and making plans for prom, which, for most students, has been canceled” so it is safe to say that Covid is the reason for missed pep rallies. This year is the first year since 2020 that most of the traditional events take place.

Even though there has not been a traditional pep rally in a couple of years, students have two rallies to look forward to this year. This possibly could mark the start of normality after the pandemic.