This is my first year at the high school, and I can tell you it is not what I expect. Or at least the school spirit is not what I was expecting. There are three groups of kids at this school; the prideful, the prideless, and those in between, the pride-ish.

There are people who do not participate in any school events, or activities whether it be going to sporting events or simply dressing up for the dress up days during homecoming week. They simply do not have anything to do with school outside the times they are required to be there, and even then do not join in on the activities that the student body has during school days. Then you have the kids who only go to things when it is convenient for them or their friends go. They also make an attempt to participate in events planned by student counsel by sometimes planning their outfits in accordance with the dress up days. And then you have the kids who go all out, the ones who wear the full on costumes on the dress-up days or show up to every sporting event they can. The ones who scream and shout for their teams.I took it upon myself to talk with three different female sophomores who have have started at the high school this year, like myself to see where they categorize themselves.

Allie Sadowsky ‘21, who categorizes herself in the prideless category, attends little to no sporting events because she was raised in a family where sports were not that important and does not participate in any school created activities besides classes. Sadowsky is not the proudest of the Johnston School District either, “ They focus too heavily on the sports here,” Sadowsky said. “…they ask for funding for the art and music departments because sometimes they struggle yet they have the money to build this multi-million dollar school.”

The majority of the student body falls into the pride-ish category. I got to thinking, maybe they just do not like the activities that are held at school. Maybe student counsel and the administration should listen to the student body, by sending out polls and their ideas via the announcement and social media, as I have previously talked about in a past column. I talked with Bella Root ’21 about her views of the school. ” School itself is diffuclut this year, and that has affected my outlook on school events, ” Root said. This is a common veiw amoung the studnet body, as school is a stressful and anxious thing to consider due to the level of diffucultiy people experiance in their classes.

Then I talked to a person from the highest level, the prideful. Taryn Mock ’21, goes to the majority of school sporting events like football and basketball, and participates in a lot of the student counsel planned events. “High School is a short time in your life, and you should enjoy every moment,” Mock said.

Meeting and talking with these girls it became clear to me that these three categories will always exist and many things factor into like the way they were raised and they people they hang out with. However, I would like to believe there could be a way to lessen the gap between the prideless and prideless, or at least change the thinking of the prideless and convert some to the pride-ish.