Last year’s spirit week, students dressed up every day, and the atmosphere at Ward Melville was happier. This year, hardly anyone was dressed up, and almost no one showed school spirit. What happened? Why did no one decide to participate this year? Did Ward Melville lose all of its school spirit, or did people just lose interest this year? 

During this difficult time of trying to go to school while wearing masks, school spirit is more important than ever. However, out of the past couple of years, student participation has never been as low as this year. 

Some students said that student government announced the themes too close to the week, others said that wearing masks and having to stay socially distant made them lose the enthusiasm to participate that they had had in years past, and others attributed their lack of interest to not having homecoming or a pep rally, which is the main reason for spirit week. For USA day, some students said they didn’t feel up to participate this year because of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests.

However, the more positive thing to happen during spirit week was the mass school participation on Friday for “Senior Chick day”. Even though many people didn’t wear an outfit for the themed days throughout the week, they still wore their senior girl jerseys or “A Senior Chick Loves Me!” shirts.

This just goes to show that even with little school spirit, certain traditions remain. Senior Chick Day, a favorite school tradition, raised school spirit all on its own. Spirit week was definitely different than usual this year, but it was still positive despite not having a homecoming.