Spirit Week Uplifts Despite Pandemic
by Jack Pegler, ’24
This year’s annual Spirit Week, which ran from Oct. 13–17, was one of many school activities that saw massive changes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We knew that the dressing up could still happen, but the bonfire and all the games, and the dance, and the pep rally, couldn’t happen,” Assistant Head of Upper School Sue Teyan, who works closely with the Student Council, said.
“We kept dressing up every day [and] we added games that everyone could play safely,” Head of Student Council Maeve Reynolds said.
These games included ping-pong, spike ball, four-soc, dodgeball, volleyball, and even Among Us. The Student Council also partnered with GSPN, who, as well as assisting with making the brackets for the games, broadcasted the finals of the games to YouTube.
“We realized that it didn’t have to focus on the other teams we were playing, but it could just be about our own spirit,” Teyan said. “It really made every day of Spirit Week fun instead of just waiting until the weekend. And I think it helped a lot of kids bond within their grade.”
Despite the mainly positive outcome of Spirit Week, the Student Council faced challenges when planning and making a fun-filled week happen during a global pandemic.
“The challenges, I would say, were us trying to figure out what games we were allowed to do safely, but also trying to figure out teams; a lot of people signed up for different things [...] so we had to make sure we could create brackets and schedules in a way that they could actually participate in everything they wanted to,” Reynolds said. “Ping-pong didn’t go as well as we thought.”
Despite the sacrifices made this year, many agree that Spirit Week was an excellent way for people to bond within their grade, as well as something to look forward to during the difficulties of navigating school throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While we lost the pep rally, and the games on the weekend, and the dance, we really gained a week-long spirit week that had a lot more stuff other than just dressing up,” Teyan said. “I think we’ll do it forever now, even after the pandemic.”