For the West Essex student body, spirit week is one of the most anticipated times of the school year. For these five school days, it’s socially acceptable for students to walk through the doors donning tutus, capes, and lots of facepaint. However, many feel that this year’s theme days are not up to par with previous years. This brings up the question: has spirit week lost its spirit?

The general consensus of students is that spirit week feels more dull than it has in the past. In a poll with 50 West Essex students, 55% found the days to be boring and unoriginal. Many feel like the themed days: West Essex day, America Monday, Team Tuesday and Pajama Day seem to lack creativity. Senior Domenic Lombardi expressed his disappointment with spirit week.

“I think this year’s spirit week is probably the worst [I’ve] had in all four years,” Lombardi said. “It’s the most generic themes.”

Senior Yasmin Cardoso conveyed a similar opinion.

“I think this year’s spirit week is kind of boring,” Cardoso said. “The themes aren’t that fun or specific [and] it’s not that fun anymore.”

The four spirit week days are brainstormed by the student council during lunch meetings.  Their ideas are then sent to administration for approval. Surprisingly, many student council members have spoken about this year spirit week being lackluster. Senior class secretary Kiana Bronder described the hasty process for determining each spirit week day.

“It honestly was just a matter of what we could get done as quickly as possible,” Bronder said.

Emma Tartini, junior class president, agreed that this year’s days were mildly disappointing. 

“I honestly think that they could be a little better,” Tartini said.

In a recent poll, 57% of West Essex is on board with is having a “meme day,” where students would dress as a recreation of their favorite meme. Junior Abby Haza expressed her excitement about incorporating this day into future spirit weeks.

“I’ve seen a lot of stuff about meme day and that would probably be really fun,” said Haza.

Due to the disappointment expressed by the student body regarding spirit week, Tartini and the rest of the student council are already looking toward the future. Their goal is to make spirit week 2020 more interesting and enjoyable for West Essex students.

 “Next year we’re definitely going to try to make them more creative and unique compared to other years,” Tartini said.