Markel Holman

Makayla Stewart, senior, paints a gold and black “U” symbol onto U-Times Web Editor Xavier Thomas’ face before the Homecoming pep rally Sept. 29.

School spirit isn’t the same anymore at our school. Some feel the community is disconnected and not like a family anymore. The support is not the same for different clubs and sports. Our school celebrates every sport but to some extent. Julia Burditt. Sophomore, feels the sports she plays deserve some respect too.

“I feel we as a community should take into account that Field Hockey and Soccer are sports too and they can have more people and maybe in the future when we get better fields we can draw more of an audience,” Burditt said.

Even though our name and logo changed years ago doesn’t mean the school spirit had to. Teachers and Staff who went to UCHS definitely feel there was a shift of enthusiasm and effort put into caring about school events, sports, clubs, etc.

“I think the school spirit has decreased because the students are disconnected and I really want to blame it on covid since they were out about 18 months from seeing their classmates, as the time when I was here in the district we were closer and had a lot more activities that we were able to do,” Marian Reed, Alumni, said. 

Sometimes the School spirit is shown in a positive light. Majority of the time it’s when we are facing off with a rival team in a sport or whenever Mr. Long shouts what time it is at a sports game.

“The school spirit can come and go in ways, like when it comes to supporting our sports team, especially basketball,” Tori Wilson, senior said. “I do think our school spirit is amazing or like when it comes to repping the school is amazing but when it comes to in school activities sometimes the school spirit kinda dies as some of the students or kinda hesitant to have fun in the activities but for the most part it’s pretty good,” Wilson said. 

Part of the blame for the lack of school spirit isn’t fully the students fault as some feel part of it also comes from our environment. Cameron Wright Jones, senior, feels it’s the energy that brings the school spirit down.

“When the energy at this school is so low everyday, it’s kinda draining and some of the people in our school don’t really care about school spirit and that’s why it really isn’t none,” Wright said. “They feel school spirit isn’t a thing.”

Just like positive energy can be contagious, so can negative energy. But that doesn’t stop some students from believing we have a good amount of school spirit. They feel as long as the school tries harder to bring spirit than it will work.

“I don’t think we need to bring school spirit back, I just think we need to up it more and I feel like the rallies help with that or doing a monthly school spirit type of thing,” Makayla Stewart, senior, said.

Times are different in U.City High School and won’t be the same as they were back then. That has been noticed by a few staff members and students and they have ways for that to bring us back as a community.  

“Kids have changed, they’re more addicted to they’re phones than they are going to the games and doing more fun things and there’s not that many kids in sports that there used to be,” Ms. Christine Woodward, counselor said  

SCHOOL POLL: DO you think our school needs more school spirit?

SCHOOL OPINIONS:

“I honestly think if the school would allow painted lockers and nd a lot of designs out in the hallways and stuff I feel like the school would have a lot more school spirit and if we have better spirit week ideas like do better dressing up ideas for spirit week it would be way better”

“Our school actually has a lot of school spirit. I just think that if the students participate in that spirit a little more it would be perfect!”

“To bring school spirit, I think we need to incorporate more pep rally’s inside and outside and just more events in general such as showing movies, plays, musicals, etc. Another idea is to sell more school merch designed by students, which you can even have a contest for best design or just use all the designs. Being able to incorporate students of all types is very important to bringing school spirit.”