Leadership combats steady decline in school spirit

“My mom ran over a cat this morning,” and “The third floor bathroom stalls smell like me,” are just some of the secrets that will be posted this Monday. This project, along with others, is meant to better the school environment at Albany High.

Headed by leadership teacher Tami Benau, ASG has taken on the task of improving school culture and increasing student involvement in school-related activities. The leadership students have formulated several ideas for solving the problem of school insipidness, some of which are already in full effect. Projects like “Post Your Secrets” and “Chalk It Up Day” try to encourage students to take more active roles in the school. Several other projects are attempting to do the same. But are these creative plans actually doing anything to combat the growing lack of school enthusiasm?

Though the leadership class has innovative ideas, many students are skeptical about the outcome of these projects. Junior Class Vice President Will Kim has worked hard on many of these ventures, and through his work has realized that, “You can’t force people to express themselves.” And like most students, ASB Secretary Sam Bozek feels that improving school culture is too big of a problem to be addressed by such small projects. Bozek compared the attempt to “healing a bullet wound with a band-aid.” The publicity for the projects has attracted very few students at best, and most “are not aware of any projects at all.”

Leadership’s work has not entirely gone in vain though. Those who have heard of the projects understand that the school does care about problems surrounding diversity. And for students like Martha Vanbik, “the school’s efforts are making for a more comfortable social and learning environment.”

6 Responses

1. 10:19 AM on May 15th, 2007haha:

   martha DID NOT say that.
   benau gaiy.

2. 12:36 PM on May 15th, 2007Who are you?:

   Yeah, actually Matha did say that.

3. 12:37 PM on May 15th, 2007oops:

   Obviously meant “Martha”

4. 1:07 PM on May 17th, 2007spencer:

   have they thought of having a homecoming parade, allowing students to wear class colors and egg each other or is all that still too dangerous

5. 7:59 PM on September 7th, 2007Melanie Zhao:

   Such application of significant efforts to resolve Albany High School’s lack of school spirit cannot possibly go by without effects. Let the school population know that we are working hard to improve their school environment and would appreciate greatly their added efforts. The Freshmen Counsel will work hard at assisting to proceed the goals of Albany High School leadership!

6. 8:08 PM on September 7th, 2007Melanie Zhao:

   In addition, I do agree that a major reason towards lack of partipation in those school activities would be that it is rather difficult to inform the students. Upon my arrival at Albany High School, I am unsure of the locations of and thus does not check any possible existing event-posting boards. The daily announcement is fast, somewhat easily forgotten, and easy to be distracted from due to that we are in our classes and many barely pay any attention to it to engage in conversations. It is hard to participate in school spirit activities if the students do not participate in knowing the school spirit activities first. If there’s a way of getting people to listen and understand and the availability of some better methods of sharing those essential information, then that will likely be a boost towards school spirit.

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