Theme Days have been a staple for football games since the opening of the school. They offer classic themes like blackout, camo, and western, but some students and active members of Student Council are wanting more creativity in the theme day lineup.
“We’re always getting backlash about what we do and all of the theme days we choose,” senior Phoebe Huang said. “I feel like we should have more freedom to express ourselves and freedom to choose the theme days and not stick to the big ones.”
StuCo has been a proud sponsor and creator backing many of the culturally-significant events such as Valegrams, Homecoming, Prom and theme days. It’s a struggle for StuCo to decide because of the restrictions put on by APs to be more creative and daring. It’s something that StuCo members hope to work towards better days.
“There’s so many more opportunities for theme days because right now I feel like we’re being very repetitive,” Huang said. “We need to find a common ground with the APs because we’ve had so many good ideas that got shut down for unfair or invalid reasons.”
StuCo had their theme day decision meeting over the summer. However unlike previous years before it, they invited members of all grades to engage in the decision making process instead of just the officers and upperclassmen. This provided a more even playing ground and less debate in the ideas brought up.
“I feel like something we did face was that we decided on themes, but we didn’t know which days we were going to plan them out on,” junior Mahi Jain said. “That was a little bit of a challenge.”
Along with the AP’s strict guidelines, the entire student body’s opinion matters to the StuCo. They must take into account different cultural backgrounds, personal beliefs and family incomes which can present some problems when wanting to make more creative leaps than years previous.
“I think it’s important to get them accessible to people regardless of their background,” Jain said. “So I think it’s really important to take into account all of those classes and provide something that’s accessible to all of them.”
Prioritizing accessibility to all students has shown great participation from all classes. Along with the outfits people wear to school, it’s also the energy in the student sections at varsity games. Student presence at games can always be louder and prouder and student section leaders and fellow attendees encourage that energy
“I think a good way to encourage participation in theme days could be if you’re wearing anything that’s on theme at the game, you could get a free drink at the concession stand,” senior Christopher Pierron said.
The varsity football team has seven more district games left. With more themes like Camo, Jersey Day and Hoco week with daily themes left in the year, student’s creativity and participation is expected to increase.