Student participation has been declining since lockdown and hasn’t really recovered.

“This is my twelfth year in education, and especially since the pandemic, there’s been a great decline in student engagement,” Diversity Club sponsor Nathan Whitman said. 

Student sections are getting bare, even at football games.

“I usually go to the first football game, but after that, I don’t really care,” sophomore KaiLee Derrick said.

Not only are the student sections low, but the number of clubs and members of the clubs have changed drastically.

“Last year, I joined a club (Civics Club), but then it got shut down,” Derrick said.

The Diversity Club grew rapidly last year; however, this year looks drastically different.

“We had about 30-40 students that I recall. We now have two,” Whitman said.

Part of the reason clubs have low attendance is because clubs have now been moved to meet after school instead of homeroom.

“The biggest change for that was because we can no longer have meetings during homeroom so that greatly affected who’s able to attend due to so many different reasons like transportation,” Whitman said.

Spirit Week is lacking involvement.

“I hope at least 100 people do…but I don’t really know the exact number,” student council member junior Emily Crowell said.

Kids are embarrassed to dress up, hoping they aren’t the only ones doing it. They often use the phrase, “I’ll dress up if you do.”

“If my friends participate, I try to,” Derrick said. 

The themes and spirit days take weeks to plan and execute.

“It takes about a couple weeks, but it depends on the overall theme…we want to get everyone involved as much as possible, so we think of different options of fun, different things to get everybody,” Crowell said.

Encouraging others to participate and getting involved is vital to boost school morale and get kids invested in school.

“Have fun with it. We try to get people on our StuCo (Student Council) social media and post people who participate in it,” Crowell said.