North Penn sports, dances, and clubs are back! Yet after two years, school spirit is still at a low.

Current seniors have had a remarkably tumultuous high school career. Normal sophomore falls, virtual sophomore springs, hybrid junior years, and mask optional senior springs. The effect of this: broken traditions and the necessity to start new ones. 

It’s no surprise to students and staff at North Penn that school is not what it used to be. The school spirit is noticeably lacking among the students ever since schools shut down in 2020.

“We’ve lost some tradition and we have to rebuild that a little bit, but I think next year will be better,” Sophomore class cabinet advisor Mr. Christopher Frey said. “This year was like, all of a sudden we’re doing stuff, you can’t just do stuff when people don’t communicate the way they used to, people don’t come to events, and people aren’t as comfortable being here.” 

High schoolers normally rely on seeing how the upperclassmen act in school activities to find the confidence and spirit to participate in school events. In the past two years, that cycle has been stunted, therefore, participation has been lower because that tradition is simply not there anymore.

“The reality is that young people know how to act by looking at older people,” Frey admitted. “When you come to North Penn as a sophomore you’re only here for three years, you don’t know. Every year we have some sophomores, more juniors, and a ton of seniors to do things. For two years we haven’t had any of that and we’ve now started at a time where many seniors start to check out, so even the gung-ho seniors at this point in their career will start to be checking out.”

For decades before 2020, the cycle of sophomores watching juniors, juniors watching seniors, and seniors leading the school fueled traditions around North Penn and now that cycle needs to be started again. 

An example of this cycle is homecoming: the school-wide event that is a highlight of the year for many high school students. As the current seniors remember, homecoming in 2019 was a week-long event. Students from all three grade levels wore their homecoming shirts after a week of spirit days, around 1300-1500 kids were packed into the gym for the pep rally where a lucky student hit a half-court shot to win a free TV, and the activities followed into the packed tailgate party before the football game where the king and queen were announced in front of a packed stadium. 

In 2020, there was Stay at Homecoming, which was the best option given the circumstances of being fully virtual but very few students participated. In 2021, some things were understandably different with masking regulations, like the pep rally being outside, but altogether, festivities were relatively normal with the crowds only slightly less than there were in 2019, indicating some aspects of normalcy returning. 

“I think we have reached a point of turning the corner. As of right now, Junior prom and forward, everything should be as it used to be. The interesting thing is, is that almost everybody in school never knew how it used to be anyways because they never experienced that,” Director of Student Activities Mr. Kyle Berger expressed. 

While the big events have seen more success, it has been more of a challenge for clubs and their smaller events to get student participation in the numbers they used to get, examples being the sophomore class ice skating trip, the ICC Volleyball tournament, and Minithon.

“I don’t think kids aren’t coming [to events] because they don’t feel comfortable, I think kids aren’t coming because they are so used to not doing it,” Frey reflected. “If you haven’t come to something, you should come, try, if you don’t like it you can always walk away.”

“It was tough for students to come to school whether we were all at home, we were hybrid, or we were masked. Now, we want kids to want to be here. I think from an academic standpoint we’re back on track and we have been. We’ve been in the building for live instruction since the beginning of the school year so the missing piece is what happens after 2:12 every day,” Berger said.

The things kids will remember after they are out of high school are not the lectures and lessons, but the experiences they had outside of academics. The large expanse of extracurriculars offered are what make North Penn special and taking advantage of them will make their three years as students here less like an obligation and more like a home.

The process of reviving what North Penn once was will take longer than would be ideal, but time is the most important factor in bringing any tradition back. In the coming months, there will be many events that students should participate in like junior and senior prom, Minithon, and a wide variety of end of year club activities to make the most of their time at North Penn. To keep up to date with all of the activities happening, be sure to check the 5 Star Students App for everything you need to know.

“The strength of our school is in our clubs and our culture and the ability for students to find their niche in their club to be a part of something bigger,” Berger expressed.