As staple memories of any high school experience, senior activities have large personal, communal, and cultural significance. So far this year, there has been a sense of missing out around the UC High campus, brought on by the apparent lack of senior festivities. Although there are a multitude of understandable reasons for why certain activities cannot occur, it is vital that the school does everything in its power to do what they can to establish or bring back some important traditions, like having pep rallies, senior quotes in the yearbook, and parking spots.

The primary reason for the missing or canceled events are, as you likely guessed, COVID-19 related. Health and safety is of utmost importance and should be held above all else. The question then is, how come pep rallies have not been allowed while indoor sports events have been filled to the brim all year? As everyone has noticed, morale around campus has been down lately, and there is no better way to inject some energy into the school community than a pep rally. There has been an announcement on the San Diego Unified School District Website, “Based on improving COVID-19 case rates, outdoor-only student events are allowed to resume.” Now that it is approved, an outdoor pep rally is a perfect way for the school to show support for its students and make a positive impact (sandiegounified.org).

The other items which have been brought up, senior quotes and assigned parking spots, have nothing to do with COVID at all. After such a difficult and strenuous two years, is there really no way to make these meaningful aspects of the high school experience occur? To make an effort to vastly improve the class of 2022’s last remaining time in high school, so much of which has been spoiled by the COVID-19 pandemic, there needs to be an effort to support all of the students who have worked so tirelessly through these past few years. Senior Monico Dauphinais said, “Senior quotes are such a classic thing that everyone seems to get to have; I was really surprised to hear that we don’t. We’ve had such a weird high school tenure and the lack of yearbook quotes is kind of like the cherry on top.”

The miserably poor morale around school could be attributed to the lack of events and activities happening. Events build school spirit and help students achieve a sense of pride in their school. Senior Olivia Skaggs said, “The school feels almost disjointed, in a way.” Without this pride and spirit, fewer students care about their peers and the health of the school community as a whole. The current situation calls for all the more effort to be put into supporting students, which can be done by hosting fun events.

Everyone understands to some extent why there haven’t been more activities and events at school. However, there should be a more robust effort put into having enjoyable events for students, especially as COVID-19 regulations continue to relax. This would result in a higher sense of school spirit and a more positive social environment at UC High.