“It’s a great day to be a Rocket!”

That’s the slogan, but our great rocket pride is slowly dwindling. Students are no longer bolting at the opportunity to join a club or sports team. When students discuss our school their conversations should ring with vigor and pride, but instead they are held with a pessimistic attitude.

“It was fun, but it’s the same every year, and every year the seniors show the most spirit,” senior Raven Nelson stated on this year’s pep rally. Which is true, every year I’ve been to a pep rally, and every year the seniors win most-spirited. Which is understandable; but the seniors spirit does not compensate for the majority of our students who don’t show school spirit.

So we think of a solution. What if we catered more to the students? We could design better apparel, I wouldn’t mind buying a galaxy themed hoodie from the gantry; and instead of the rocket man, how about an actual astronaut as the mascot. On top of that I believe we should do more things collectively as a school. Like more field trips and event fundraisers for students to participate in. All of these things will increase student interaction and enjoyment.

A lot of this negativity stems from the students. Most students have a negative attitude towards their participation in sports here at our school, which in turn makes matters worse. This negative feedback often clouds the judgement of other students that were interested in these extracurricular activities. So now we have a program or sports team with not enough participants.

I asked class leader, and senior Jaydee Vinuya what he thought about our school spirit and he said: “There really isn’t any spirit. I haven’t felt any spirit in a long time at John Glenn.” He also agrees that we have to appeal to the students in order to draw their attention and gain interest. Maybe we could design more apparel, and get students advocate more extracurricular activities. Jaydee is the head of the Launch Pad, a school spirit account managed by students. Hopefully in the future we can use this social media platform to promote new apparel, activities, clubs, and announcements. As of right now the Launch Pad only updates us on school sports and popular activities, in the future we hope to add more details and in-school announcements. That way we can give students an additional option to receive information. This platform can also give students a way to voice their opinion on topics regarding their class, or the school in general.