Spirit Week at Harwood Union High School usually consists of many activities from obstacle courses to class murals. This annual event takes place in the spring and each class becomes united as they fight for points. The class with the most points at the end of the week wins. This year, however, things are different. With school out because of COVID-19, the Harwood assembly crew (the usual coordinators) had to get creative with this year's Spirit Week.
The festivities started with an inspirational video from Mr. Plaid (aka Andrew Reid, a science teacher). Mr. Plaid proceeded to explain how this year's virtual Spirit Week would work. Students and teachers participated in different activities daily. Every year, prior to the start of Spirit Week, classes pick their own themes. For each day of Spirit Week the whole school dresses up as one class's theme. For each person that dresses up, a point is given to their own grade.
On Monday, May 18, students and staff were encouraged to dress up as the freshman’s theme which was Twin Day, meaning have a matching outfit with another person. Students and staff were told to send in a picture of themselves by either sending it to the assembly crew through email or posting it on social media and tagging them. Along with Monday’s theme came a Spirit Challenge: The Perfect Cartwheel. Students and staff were told to video themselves doing the challenge and send it in.
Tuesday’s, May 19, theme was picked by the sophomores. Students and staff dressed in their favorite color. The challenge of the day was to make a fort. Wednesday’s theme was picked by the juniors and it was Pajama Day and the May 20 challenge was called Pet Parade. Students and staff would dress up their pets in flamboyant outfits. On Thursday, May 21, there was no Spirit Challenge, but students and staff dressed up for the seniors’ theme which was Beach Day. On Friday, May 22, there was no theme picked by the students. There was also no challenge. Keeping with tradition, students and staff dressed up in black and gold, the Harwood colors.
The coordinators of Spirit Week are Harwood s assembly crew. Winter Haberle is a junior and has been in assembly crew since his freshman year. “We figured it would be good for people to have something to distract them. Everyone’s pretty bored at home. Even if it’s not something super exciting it’s something to do, and it’s a way to stay connected to everybody,” Haberle said. When asked about a concern, Haberle said, “That we wouldn’t have enough time to plan it because we decided to do it three or four weeks before, so we had to plan it all out quickly.” The assembly crew started working on virtual Spirit Week in mid-April, giving them only a few weeks to set everything up.
Although Spirit Week is for the students, Haberle said that he had reservations about the rate of student participation, but was happy when he found that the student-to-teacher ratio was closer than he anticipated, “I’d say a little less from students but almost even.”
Although Spirit Week is over, the points are still being added up. Students will have to sit with the question “Who won?” for an undetermined amount of time.
