Post COVID, the student council realized the lack of student participation in events such as Homecoming and Winter Carnival. This year, less than a third of the students in each grade participated in the daily dress up days during Homecoming and Winter Carnival. StuCo members think that the lack of participation is due to disinterest, forgetfulness, or simply not having anything to wear. Members have speculated that some students do not participate out of fear of being bullied.

Señora McKinnon, the head of Student Council at GHS, has seen a decrease in participation after the students returned to school after COVID. There is officially no known reason for the lack of participation. Señora McKinnon also states, “More people participate in homecoming, because it’s the beginning of the year and as the year progresses the participation decreases.”

Lily Fedock, a junior, participates all the time as well as her friends. Her opinion on why people don’t participate in schoolwide activities is that they’ll be embarrassed, or just plainly forget about them. There are many ways to figure out what’s going on in our community, but Fedock finds out by The Grizzly Buzz, announcements, Instagram, and friends.

Freshman Logan Renzi does not participate in school spirit days. His friends also do not participate. Renzi thinks that “they just don’t care enough and don’t feel like participating.” He finds out about the spirit days on the school announcements and by watching the Grizzly Buzz.

Juniors Kayley and Charlotte Small are both class representatives on the student council. According to them, assembly games and class dances are the spirit week events with the most participation. To them, the canned food drives and penny slams are the hardest to get people to participate in. 

Kayley and Charlotte think that the lack of participation is caused by a lack of motivation. Kayley says “honestly, it really is that people don’t care and even if they do care, a lot of times one person says they aren’t participating, and then others slowly decide not to as well because they don’t want to be made fun of.” Charlotte thinks it could also be due to a lack of accessible promotion for the events, since most information is shared over the announcements, which can be difficult to hear and students with late arrival are often not in the building during these times.

Charlotte believes “…we should revert back to elementary school and send kids home with fliers to put up on the fridge and also have posts on social media groups with parents who can remind their kids. We could also request that teachers mention it more often, [to] encourage participation.”