ASB creatively takes on the new year

By Marina-Rae Gill, Reporter

       Over the years, Vashon ASB has encouraged school spirit through dress-up days, morning announcements, pep assemblies, and other school-wide events. Never before however, has our student government had to inspire school spirit and class community entirely online. Faced with a new challenge, Vashon’s ASB members are not short on creativity, and have discovered new ways to keep their student body connected and in high spirits.

     Students participate in a white-out spirit day organized by ASB. Members of ASB have been working to keep a sense of school spirit in the student body.

        Despite the absence of students at school, senior student body co-president Zach Van Dusen and the rest of the ASB team have been working hard to keep up school spirit and community.
       “We are trying to figure out how to communicate best, [with] lots of online meetings, and lots of texting between each other,” Van Dusen said. “ … none of our normal events are happening, so we have to completely re-jigger the system, and change and brainstorm completely new ideas. It’s a fun new task.”
       During a normal school year, students would start their day with an informative and comical announcement delivered by ASB students. This year however, this feature has been transformed into a school podcast, The PiratePod.
       “I was brainstorming with my family, and we thought it[the podcast] was a good idea,” Van Dusen said. “We listened to some other brief podcasts, and I think they’re entertaining, especially when they’re pretty short.”
With some quick research, Van Dusen was able to draw up a format tailored specifically for VHS students. He and the student government started recording announcements, jokes, conversations, and even current events, through an app called Anchor. While keeping each session of The PiratePod quick and concise, students now have a fun source of daily entertainment and information.
       “During normal school, there are a lot more platforms to make it easy to publicise and advertise various events, like morning announcements, or [passing from] mouth to mouth.” Van Dusen said, “We’re trying to figure out what the best way to communicate with the students and the school [is].”
       Not only has ASB been organizing online spirit events, but they also ran an online election for the freshmen student government.
       “Due to COVID, they did not get a chance to elect a freshmen cabinet,” Van Dusen said.
       However, as of a recent announcement, Lilliana Sewell, Ivy Merkl, Eden Guthery, Olivia
Boyes, and Mallory Keenan have been deemed the new representatives of the freshmen class.
       As many know, each class’ cabinet is responsible for arranging fundraisers and projects in order to earn money to pay for their senior prom night. With hopes that these special events will still take place in the years to come, class cabinets are generating ideas on how to safely make money.
       “For our [sophomore] class, we were supposed to get the student staff basketball funds,” sophomore cabinet member Celena Becerra said, “That was our main fundraiser for the year. Since that didn't happen, we have to meet with Mr. Butler, who is our adviser for that, and try to figure out … how to fundraise that online.”
       Even last spring, the senior class put together an online tutoring business in order to raise money. Though it has been a crazy year, ASB is successfully adapting to online school spirit.
       “We primarily focus on bringing school spirit to the school in many different forms. Usually, it’s more straightforward; we can run dances, spirit days, pep assemblies, et cetera,” Van Dusen said, “But online school [makes it] much more difficult to find ways to promote school spirit and bring this community of school together.”