Winter spirit week to begin tomorrow

The second spirit week of the school year will begin tomorrow and includes a voluntary assembly celebrating Black History Month on Friday, which the administration decided to substitute in place of a traditional pep rally, according to Assistant Principal James Short.

The spirit days are Slumber Party Day on Tuesday, Secret Identity Day on Wednesday, Blast from the Past Day on Thursday and Red Out Day on Friday. Club showcases may still occur during lunch on Friday, according to SGA Director of School Spirit senior Francesca Blume.

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Photo: Senior Susan Thomas helps paint posters announcing the four spirit days: Slumber Party Day, Secret Identity Day, Blast from the Past Day and Red Out Day.

Senior Susan Thomas helps paint posters announcing the four spirit days: Slumber Party Day, Secret Identity Day, Blast from the Past Day and Red Out Day.  Photo courtesy of Alex Lutz.

The assembly will take place during seventh period on Friday and will celebrate Black History Month. Social studies teacher Maima Barclay, who is organizing the event, sees the assembly as an opportunity to understand black history and its modern significance. "We're looking forward to having this discussion that is so relevant to our school," Barclay said.

Each day throughout the week, the SGA will be selecting the "Mr. and Mrs." award winners who "showed the best participation," according to SGA President Molly Martinez. The SGA will be going throughout Blair with cameras in search of the winners, who will receive a small prize and have their names aired on InfoFlow.

Because the SGA will not be organizing this week's culminating activity, some members feel discouraged by the administration's decision. "I was really hoping we could have a pep rally, so we could celebrate the success of our winter sports teams," Blume said.

According to Blume and Martinez, the administration decided against a pep rally after an incident at the homecoming pep rally where students threw eggs twice, once into the stands and once onto the gym floor. "But I don't see the behavior issue ever being resolved," Blume said.

Barclay and research teacher Kevin Shindel are also planning a panel discussion about diversity at Blair on Wednesday. Barclay has invited the W.E.B. Dubois Honors Society and Diversity Club to participate in the discussion, and Shindel is creating a panel of Communication Arts Program (CAP) students to participate and raise questions for debate. "Blair, being as diverse as it is, it's important to talk about the distribution of African Americans in programs such as CAP and Magnet," Barclay said.

For the panel discussion, SGA Director of Race Relations junior Novian Haynes echoed Barclay's goals for the assembly. "I hope this panel discussion will raise awareness among staff members as well as students," Haynes said.