During pep rallies, we’ve witnessed more school spirit from parents than from the student body itself. Let’s face it, we have no pep; our school spirit is scarce and our pep rallies are just dreary. But, spirit can be revived if we take a look at what is causing the lethargic student population. Pep rallies should be moved to a later time, incorporate more student participation, and include other school clubs and groups.

It’s easy to understand why administration schedules the pep rallies during first period. Students were skipping eighth period to go home resulting with in a small number of students at the pep rallies, but there are two problems that are still present.

One, it’s first period and teens like sleep. If they can’t leave school earlier in the day, they will just come late. It has been proven that teenagers need eight to ten hours of sleep, which talk to any teenager and they will tell you that with school work, that hardly ever happens. This results in tired teenage minds, especially before 11 a.m. We, as teenagers, are going to be tired throughout the day, but especially in the mornings. Our brains don’t shift into peppy-mode just because there is a pep rally. This can easily be proven. On any given Friday, go into a 1st period class room then wait until 7th or 8th period and go in a classroom. Despite the teachers’ request, students will be more rowdy as the weekend draws nearer. If administration were to move pep rallies to 7th period, both of these problems (attendance and pep) will be solved. Students are still required to go to 8th period (which eliminates skipping class) and there will still be the buzzed happiness from the weekend that fuels students’ excitement.

Pep rallies are to get the student body excited, and there’s nothing like a teacher reading off a schedule to put a damper on school excitement. Coach Cox is a great pep rally leader. His role and energy helps the pep rallies but administration should allow student leaders to lead pep rallies as well. Texas A&M University has yell leaders which are, undoubtedly, one of the most important Aggie traditions and set great examples of school spirit. Most of the time, you’ll get more spirit out of a senior than any teacher, and students follow in each other’s footsteps, resulting in more school-wide excitement. A simple fix.

The final adjustment that needs to be made to the pep rallies are the topics. In the rallies, a broad selection of sports are recognized. Yet, none of the UIL Academic teams are recognized. If we value academics as much as we say we do, we need to show it. As a school, we need to do a better job of recognizing the students that aren’t athletes but are still doing great things like members of the chess team, UIL Academics, debate, mock trial, even newspaper. There is so much more to our school than those who play sports. High school is about everyone will their own special talents that come together to create a well rounded student body. Pep rallies need to display that. Also, the more students you get involved, the more student participation will be shown.

Now, some of these propositions might see intimidating like letting a bunch of crazy teenagers run an assembly or breaking up the day, but it can only improve school spirit, which, despite successful efforts from the 2015 senior class, is still at fault. Pep rallies need more pep, even the administration admitted it. We not only need to change what we do, but more importantly, how we do it. Move pep rallies towards the end of the day, incorporate student leadership, and include more student activities, and school spirit should slowly be refueled.