As senior Cal Currier arrives at the bleachers filled with his fellow classmates, he doesn’t go to find an empty seat. Instead, he pushes his way to the front, dressed in Paly’s locally renowned green and white, ready to lead his class to a win during spirit week. From the spirit week’s color-filled annual festivities to the seniors iconically decked out in camo, Currier said Paly’s traditions always become cherished memories after a student’s journey on campus.
School traditions can help foster a sense of community within a large student body like Paly’s that has students from many backgrounds. And while Paly does have well-established traditions, some on campus believe new traditions would further help students’ paths cross outside of classes.
Economics teacher Eric Bloom, who has taught at Paly for 26 years, said a day dedicated to caring for the campus would unite all grades and benefit the campus.
“We need something that all classes do together,” Bloom said. “It would be great to have a day that all classes came together and deep cleaned the campus.”
Senior and Spirit Commissioner Hannah Jensen said she attended several activities during Gunn’s spirit week and found three notable traditions there: night rallies, homecoming and prom court.
“For Gunn, what I really like is their indoor night rally,” Jensen said. “We actually had some ASB officers go over there to judge their rallies, and they were like ‘Woah, Paly should do that.’”
Jensen also said she would like to see Paly incorporate homecoming or prom court as an annual tradition, like Gunn.
“There should definitely be a way to implement prom king and queen without the labels,” Jensen said. “Whether that’s prom royalty or a royal court.”
Gunn sophomore Eda Ertas said the energy at this year’s night rally was remarkable.
“My first night rally was this year, and I’m actually upset that I didn’t go last year,” Ertas said. “It was such a crazy experience where everyone’s in a good mood, people doing flips.”
Jensen said the spirit and sense of unity at Paly is irreplaceable, but the addition of more traditions would certainly boost a sense of community, ultimately allowing for a new era of students to greater appreciate school spirit.
And Currier said Paly should take inspiration from other schools when it comes to traditions.
“We need a tradition that allows teenagers to have freedom (to) do what they want to do,” Currier said. “I would like to create more traditions around sports games, like a song. Imagine if every student knew a couple of songs that we just started belting out during a game.”
