Anticipating an “All in” attitude on the first day of the school year, upperclassmen welcome new kids and sophomores into the building.
“We think school spirit, the idea of loving and caring for our kids, student achievement, and belonging to extracurriculars and athletics are very important. It’s important that we dedicated an entire morning just to that purpose,” student council advisor Amber Bronson said.
Student council and the National Honors Society (NHS) went “all in” to plan a pep assembly getting students ready for the new year. The assembly took place during the first half of the day and had games, a motivational speaker and free t-shirts thrown into crowds. The goal was to get students warmed up and encourage involvement with the school.
“Some NHS students, Mrs. Wood, myself, and then some student council kids all went to Florida this year in order to take part in the Jostens Renaissance Global Conference. It gives us an opportunity to meet schools across the country to see what they do and then to kind of beg, borrow and steal those ideas in order to create new traditions here at Eisenhower,” Bronson said.
The conference gave NHS and the student council the idea to incorporate more activities that encourage the “all in” mindset throughout the school. Hearing all of the ideas in Florida inspired them to play games like Fruit by the Foot and cup stacking.
“It brought students together because we all wanted to win the games, so we were encouraging the people on our teams even if we didn’t know them very well,” senior Raegan McCloud said.
The games played at the assembly demonstrated what the “All in” mindset is about. Students worked as a team to succeed together.
“When we were listening to different ideas, this seemed like something that was way more fun than, you know, getting a seating chart or talking about a syllabus,” Bronson said.
The varsity dance and cheer teams performed routines before motivational speaker, Phil Campbell, took the stage to give students a piece of advice for the new year.
“I think he’s a trailblazer in that idea of making sure that teachers and schools really work hard to create relationships with their kids. I think that students who were engaged and really heard what he said had an opportunity to get some really good information about how, not only for us as adults, to care about our kids, but to create a relationship where our kids care about our adults and care about each other in order to help everybody across the finish line,” Bronson said.
The pep assembly was a way to get everyone excited for the year ahead. The hosts of the assembly, seniors Isabella Gjokaj and Izzy DeCardenas, took turns introducing students and teachers whilst explaining the games.
“I think it’s really beneficial, especially because we have so many new students and staff. I think it was a great welcome for everyone,” Gjokaj said. “I would 100 percent host again.”
Click here for a photo gallery of the pep assembly: All in assembly – Ike News
