Seneca Valley High Schools featured a Homecoming Spirit Week last week as a way to boost school spirit and morale before the weekend’s festivities.

The school spirit week has the intention of “lighting” school spirt in each student. It happened during the week leading up to Homecoming and included a raffle and lots of funny and crazy clothes that fit the theme.

The raffle is one of the things that makes Spirit Week more exciting. Nathan Taylor explained how it works: “Well, one or two student council students walk around the cafeteria during their lunch period, keeping an eye out for people participating in the Spirit Week theme. If they are, they get a raffle ticket, and it is put in a bin. At the end of the period, a student is drawn at random and awarded a Sheetz gift card.”

During spirit week, themes were chosen and then students dressed up following each day’s theme. The themes 2023 were pajama day, twin day, Barbie vs. Oppenheimer, everything but a backpack, and Raider pride.

On the first day, many students wore their pajamas, but as the week went on, the participation in Spirit Week faded. Twin day presented a problem, because, even if it was a successful theme, it wasn’t noticeable. Many people don’t have the same classes with the person they “twinned” with, so during the day the “twins get separated” then the matching clothes turn into just normal clothes.

Because of this, many students have been questioning the choice of the themes. Alivia Moore from student council revealed the topics are selected in the first place. “We (student council) helped organize the themes. There was a form sent out to the entire high school to vote on Spirit Week themes. We took the top 5 themes and then just matched days to them.”

New ideas of themes are something that many students have. “If I could choose a theme, it would definitely be costume day,” Maite Vasconcellos, an Intermediate High School student, said. Another student seconded this idea. “I would choose to dress up as Adam Sandler,” said Sierra Brown, a sophomore. Another student expressed the desire to get rid of the everything but a backpack theme that gets repeated every year. “Instead of doing the everything but backpack day, I would enjoy jersey day,” said Payton Warner, a sophomore.

If you want your ideas to be part of the next Spirit Week and make it more exciting for everyone, you should vote for it next time.