After a long summer and hours put into planning Spirit Week last September, Student Council takes the time to reflect on their successes and failures. Student Council plans ahead for future student body activities, including more spirit days.

“It was a huge success this year,” junior Tyler Goschnick said. “We saw a great improvement in the amount of participation from the students this year than in previous years.”

With such a diverse crowd at Rochester, Student Council has to take into consideration the different types of students that are not as original with the usual senior class and super creative people.

“Scrub day was the most widely participated by because you can just get out of bed and go to school and no one will judge you for it,” sophomore Ellen Weagner said. “We all dress like scrubs no matter what, but that day you could just do it and nobody really thought anything of it.”

Every year, Student Council observes the tradition days such as Camouflage Day, Class Color Day, and Generation Day. However, this year, especially being only a four day week, Student Council did not want too many repeats of the same days. They decided to save the suggestion of generation day for a later date.

“We didn’t want to be too repetitive,” senior Mackenzie Van Vleck. said. “[Student Council] didn’t want to have the same of the three spirit days. And then we had opportunities for more spirit days for this spirit week.”

By saving and having more options saved for future spirit days, it allows Student Council to expand school spirit throughout the entire school year

“These guys, this year, want to do a Senior Spirit Week, so we made some choices about reserving some of the really cool choices for the seniors only, but the simpler ones for the whole student body,” student council supervisor Mrs. Cusmano said. “I haven’t really talked about it, but when we do a Senior Spirit Week, I would assume it would be around a senior activity either like, Mr. Rochester or towards the end of the year.”

Spirit weeks though are not just for the seniors, however, Student Council is also considering another spirit week around the Crosstown Showdown.

“We couldn’t do a spirit week for [the Crosstown Showdown] last year because we were out of school the Friday before that week and were afraid that students would forget about it over the weekend,” Cusmano said. “So as long as the calendar works out there will be a crosstown or Senior Class Spirit Week for Mr. Rochester. Charity Week could also be a possibility.”

Annual events, such as Mr. Rochester and the Crosstown Showdown are an opportunity for students to participate in school-wide activities and show their school spirit. Student enjoys giving students the option to feel like a unified student body.

“Spirit weeks show like, ‘this is what my school is doing, I’m going to do it too’,” said Weagner. “If we didn’t really care what our school was doing then you wouldn’t participate. When you do [participate] it shows you’re in with what’s going on. It shows unity.”

These spirit weeks draw students together through their school spirit and is a passed on tradition from one grade down to the next.

“Every year it’s a real mystery to see whether or not students will be interested in participating,” Goschnick said. “Once they see the majority of the student body dressed up, they tend to follow the crowd and join in. It’s kind of like positive peer pressure from older students to younger students. The more spirited the senior class is, the more spirited the rest of the student body will become.”

Click here to see pictures capturing Homecoming Week