Every year at Portsmouth High School (PHS), spirit week takes place. Spirit week is a fun way for students to bond, and show school spirit as well as grade spirit. Every day of the week contains a new theme, and spirit week ends with a grand pep rally on Friday, where each grade battles to win the most spirited.

This year, the themes are grade color day, clash day, twin day, pajama day, and school color day. Throughout the week there is also knockout competitions. Finally, on Friday there is a tug of war,  scavenger hunt musical chairs, dodgeball, knockout competition finals, relay race, and the unveiling of athletic banners from last year.

Although spirit week is a fun time of the year, it brings in a lot of controversies. For starters, some people don’t like certain themes. Also, on Friday, the senior class comes out in all black to a hyped song to make an impressive appearance in front of all the classes. This year, there has been a lot of talk on what the song should be, with countless emails and surveys asking what the seniors wanted. The song chosen was “Now I do what I want” by Lil Uzi Vert.

Approximately 50 people were surveyed regarding this song choice (and Spirit Week) and the results were significant. The majority of all surveyed disliked clash day. Also, multiple people recommended similar alternatives like meme day, hero day, throwback day, decade day, and more. As for the pep rally song, almost all the seniors who were surveyed believed it was picked unfairly but most do not care too much to make a change.

Overall, even though Spirit Week can cause some arguments (like whether or not seniors can boo the freshman), we should focus on the positives of it. It is meant to be a fun experience to help students bond with one another through creative dress ideas, as well as participate in fun activities throughout the week, and during the pep rally. Hopefully, PHS can make the most of this year’s spirit week, and learn from it to make future weeks better.