La Plata High School tradition has been to have each student class government decorate the science, social studies, math, and English hallway the Friday prior to winter break. However, this may be a dying tradition. With less and less interest in staying after-school, fewer students are participating in hallway decorating, resulting in the measly appearance of this year’s hallway, with the exception of the science hallway, decorated by this year’s sophomores.
The math hallway, decorated by the seniors, is decorated with two rolls of wrapping paper, ornaments, ribbon, and a drawing of Rudolph. The sad adornment of ribbon is meant to spell out “Rudolph,” but, instead, being misspelled, it spells out “Rudolf.”
In stark contrast to this is the science hallway, decorated by the sophomores. This hallway is adorned with wrapping paper, creating what seems to be the ground, with reindeer “jumping” across from it to the “sky,” or the wall where there is no wallpaper. Along the top of the lockers is cotton.
Some may say that the reason that the senior’s poorly decorated their hallway, meanwhile the sophomore’s decorated their hallway well is due to their lessening interest in school. However, is this really the case? For homecoming hallway decorating, which was just two months ago, the seniors fully decorated their hallway, coming just shy of winning hallway decorating. Could an apathy really have grown so strong within a mere two months?
Perhaps, instead, the reason for the lessening interest in hallway decorating is due to a lack of time or disinterest in staying afterschool. With clubs now meeting during Pride Time, only those in a few after-school clubs and sports seem to stay after school on a regular basis. Now, accustomed to having the remaining day after-school, it may difficult for a student to fit in staying after school for 1.75 hours into a hectic schedule.
So, what else could be done during the holiday season as a substitute for hallway decorating? Perhaps each student class government could instead meet during Pride Time in order to create a large holiday poster. These could then be hung either in the hallways or around the commons area, helping to promote a festive, jovial spirit.
Another alternative option is personally created ugly sweaters. There could be sessions during pride time in which students could go to a designated area, bringing along with them a sweater, so that they could decorate the sweater will pure ugliness. The teachers could also create their own ugly holiday sweaters. These could then be worn during holiday spirit week, such as on an ugly holiday sweater day.
Alternatively, holiday hallway decorating could be kept in place, but more incentive could be given to those who stay after in order to decorate. For example, more points could be offered but only for hallway decorating; this may convince some individuals to stay after-school and contribute. Regardless of whether hallway decorating is kept or replaced, an action needs to be taken so that in following years, the holiday spirit is more emanating and the hallways are well decorated.
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