Homecoming Spirit Week Themes Raise Concerns Among PCHS Student Body

Written By: Jennifer Alzerreca

In accordance with the end of the high school football season, homecoming dances and events start from between the middle and end of October. With this, many high school districts encourage their individual “spirit weeks.” This involves students typically dressing up in fun, creative ways with a theme that helps raise school spirit for the last home game of the season. This school year, there have been split feelings over the chosen themes for spirit week. 

On Tuesday, 10/11 Country vs Country club, Wednesday, 10/12 Hawaiian day, Thursday, 10/13 Color Wars, and lastly Friday, 10/14 Blue and White day. Many students have voiced their opinions about the spirit week themes from last week. A PCHS varsity cheerleader said, “I like spirit week because it brings the school community together and it is a fun way to celebrate the week leading up to homecoming.” School spirit is important to Port Chester High School. This is reflected in the inclusivity that surrounds spirit weeks: students, faculty and staff are all encouraged to participate.

However, it was apparent that this opinion was not a consensus. One in four students said that they were not happy with the spirit week themes. Of these students, most voiced that they were in favor of more fun and creative spirit week themes rather than the ones chosen for this year. An anonymous source shared, “I don’t think it’s right that Hawaiian Day was chosen out of all other possible themes. I believe it’s offensive to native Hawaiians as well as Pacific Islanders, and it’s just a pretty uncreative day in general.” Besides these thoughts, the majority of students just wished that they could have a say in the creation of spirit week themes: “I dont think it’s particularly fair that the student body gets no say in spirit day themes. I think that if we would have been able to choose what we had to do, then maybe more people would have liked the themes.” There was an overall agreement that students want more representation within school decisions. 

Despite these concerns, it was reported that a good percentage of students are planning on participating in spirit week. Many are excited to show off their creative takes on themes. While there may be some disagreement on how the school decided to go about this spirit week, it’s safe to say that students are still showing their enthusiasm for the homecoming game as well as the annual bonfire happening this Friday night.