“Dude, be nice” week is a series of events dedicated to showing kindness to others that the Student Council has planned for March 19-23.

The week has been planned with certain events and activities to make others feel good. This week comes from the company “dude. be nice,” which sells apparel and promotes friendliness.

“It is a nation-wide organization that is a program across the country that promotes being nice rather than anti-bullying,” senior Student Council member Turner Thompson said.

The Student Council plans on making this week more meaningful for students than just an anti-bullying week. Senior and Student Council member Parker Johnson hopes that the phrase “Dude, be nice” will do a better job of keeping students’ interest.

“We think when students hear the phrase ‘anti-bullying presentation,’ their eyes kind of glaze over, and they kind of just get bored and tune it out because they’ve heard it all the way since kindergarten up to here,” Johnson said. “So we wanted to kind of preach the reverse and do the ‘Dude, be nice’–like be nice instead of being mean.”

Some of the activities going on will consist of a video, decorations, wearing green, and a pep rally. One day students will receive buttons with positive phrases to wear during the week, and one day will feature a “compliment wall” of sticky notes in the commons. The Student Council and assistant principal Julie Hirsh are working to make this week memorable.

“We have a couple of surprise activities that we are working on planning,” Hirsh said. “We still have to get them approved by Mr. Mayfield, but you might see us thanking a couple of student groups or some staff members or all of the students in general or have you all thanking each other or do nice things for each other throughout the week, and so those will be surprises that you will see coming.”

Planning a week like this one can be difficult and time-consuming. The Student Council has known about this week for a while, which has given them more time to plan it out. However, they still face many challenges when coming up with ideas that will get students interested.

“Some of the challenges we have faced are just coming up with good ideas for the students that they would like to be involved in and would like to participate in and that would impact them,” Thompson said.

In order to make this week happen, the parent-teacher-student association (PTSA) has helped fund some of the events. With these funds, they hope to help students interact and enjoy the week.

“We do have to say that the PTSA is being really nice to help fund some of the things for it,” Hirsh said. “So we hope to be able to give out some items to the student body kind of like we did with Red Ribbon week– we gave you all red ribbons. We are hoping to have a couple of surprise gifts to give to the students.”

The overall goal of “Dude, be nice” week is to help students learn easy ways to show kindness. With this goal in mind, the Student Council plans to make it fun and leave a positive impact on students.

“We hope it to be an uplifting experience for the students,” Thompson said. “That they learn how–obviously they already know how to be nice–but just how to bring it to little daily activities throughout their days.”