LOS ALAMITOS, CA — “Seniors, strap in!” The gym rumbles as seniors stomp their feet and drum roll their hands on the floor. Their section erupts in boisterous screams as every senior enthusiastically waves their arms and jumps up to do the Los Al Loco roller coaster. 

This was following the freshmen’s, sophomores’, and juniors’ performances, which were more lethargic mumbles and reluctant arm-raisings compared to the tidal wave of sound and movement from the seniors. 

The seniors’ energetic display of school spirit at the Winter Formal assembly last Monday, Jan. 23 made up for the lack of action from the underclassmen. But as the number one Orange County Student Section, the low energy at Los Alamitos High School’s own school assemblies is disheartening. Los Al was also spotlighted in KTLA’s School Spotlight Series, yet the apathy at the assembly reflects otherwise. School spirit seems to be rapidly declining in high schools across the country, including in Los Al.

Lailah Downs and Cameron Stewart, seniors and ASB Spirit Commissioners, said that they have noticed a difference in school spirit at Los Al. Stewart said that COVID-19 decreased the number of Los Al’s groups and student sections. However, he added that football game attendance has skyrocketed since last year, with a record number of 1,700 students attending this year’s Homecoming game. But he and Downs both agreed that seniors are currently showing the most school spirit.

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Matt Nguyen/ASB tech team

The juniors' roller coaster was better than the sophomores and freshmen, but not as impressive as the seniors since only the front rows appeared to be giving it their all.

“I think this is because as seniors we have gotten the chance to experience spirited events such as football games, assemblies, and dances, so we know how fun they can be, but [underclassmen] have yet to get the chance too so they do not show as much interest and spirit,” Downs explained. 

The Griffin Gazette conducted a survey asking Los Al students about their participation in spirited activities. Only eight of the 112 respondents said that they dress to the theme for spirit days and dances, and 23% said that they don’t dress up at all. 

Many students don’t see the point in dressing up, but sometimes a lack of communication causes a low turnout of dressed-up students because they don’t know what to wear. Especially for students without social media, only posting spirit days on ASB’s Instagram can make it difficult for people to find the information. 

“For the dress-out days, some of them are hard to do with clothes on hand. I do like to do them, but I don’t want to be a sore thumb, so I only do the ones that are easy to sort of hide,” freshman Emma Voigt said.

When asked if they do the roller coaster at football games, respondents were almost equally split four ways. About 25% each said “Yes,” “No,” “Yes, but half-heartedly,” or “I don’t go to football games.” However, when asked if they do the roller coaster at assemblies, only about 20% responded “Yes.” Over half said they do it only half-heartedly and the rest don’t do it at all. Additionally, about 24% said that they were never taught how to do the roller coaster, they just picked it up eventually. Almost 25% don’t know how.

Survey results:

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Bella Kim/Google Forms

School spirit survey's percent of respondents from each grade level.

“They briefly taught us the roller coaster at Freshman Seminar, but we never really touched back to it,” freshman Chloe Chu said. Chu responded that she doesn’t know how to do the roller coaster. “I guess it’s something most people just slowly pick up during their time here at Los Al. Based on pep rallies, I noticed the seniors are the loudest and it goes down the chain from there.”

“During our assembly, everyone saw the difference between the freshman roller coaster and the senior one,” Stewart said. “The senior one is going to be more memorable not because ASB did the roller coaster but because the students participated.”

One Los Al sophomore responded that they do the roller coaster at football games because they feel more spirited, but not at assemblies because of a lack of other participants. It appears that more students do the roller coaster at football games because of the hyped-up environment and to support the players. 

“I don’t find myself participating in this as for one, I was never formally taught how to do it and with that brings the foreboding thought that if you give it your all, other people might not and you might just end up making a fool of yourself,” a sophomore said. 

“I don’t do the roller coaster because no one else does [it]. I did it one time and was the only one who jumped. It was embarrassing and I’d rather not be singled out,” Voigt said.  

Some students responded that they appreciate Los Al’s and ASB’s efforts towards strong school spirit, but they don’t have enough school pride themselves to also participate. Or they don’t view spirit days and football games as important to their high school experience. Seven out of 12 respondents said that they simply don’t care about school spirit. 

“ASB is really trying to take suggestions from the students on what we can do in order to boost school spirit and to get the students more involved,” Downs said. Clearly, Los Al’s decreased school spirit should not be attributed to ASB or the school, but rather the attitude of the student body. 

High school newspapers throughout the US have recently reported on declines in student participation. Los Al psychologist Vhenus Belisle said that factors like COVID-19 and social media could account for high schoolers’ drop in school spirit. 

“I think it might be the fear of getting judged later or being filmed and someone posting their actions on Snap,” Ms. Belisle said. “Being visible means that you’re putting yourself out there to be vulnerable to [criticism]. Unfortunately, it shouldn’t be this way.” Offering solutions to help students who feel uncomfortable participating, she suggested that Los Al show a film defining student expectations at assemblies, offer school spirit wear prizes, and practice the roller coaster in classes. 

“Some students may have never had spirit days or big assemblies so they don’t know what the expectations are,” she said, adding that students could still be recovering from the COVID-19 shutdown.

Los Al students seem to be taking ASB’s efforts at school spirit for granted. While dress-up days and pep rallies may seem pointless now, it can be fun, and these experiences are what people remember from high school. Students should support ASB instead of mock them, and muster up enough school pride to wear red on a spirit day or jump up to give a good shout during the roller coaster.