This year, my high school made changes to the Homecoming assembly. For starters, South campus and North campus had separate assemblies at different times of the day. Also, the assemblies were not outside on the football field, but instead, in the East gym at North campus and the upper gym at South.

In addition to location and time changes, the pep assembly tried a student versus faculty basketball game instead of a student versus faculty football game. I thought this was a good addition to the pep assembly. There was more action. Compared to last year with the football game, the crowd was more able to get as involved. With all the starting and stopping in football, there was less action and more wasted time. The basketball game allowed continuous action with limited starting and stopping, and the crowd was very interested.

The second improvement was the indoor environment. Outside in the stadium everyone was spread out. In the gym, the conditions were tight and the noise was amplified so it seemed as if everyone was extra excited with all the cheering and screaming. I thought this was a good thing for pumping up the pep assembly. Plus, with bleachers on both sides of the gyms, seeing the other side filled with people, added to the experience.

However, in the previous year we got the chance to go outside and have had beautiful weather. It was nice to be in a different environment then just stuck inside the whole day. Plus being on the football stadium the students are in a football type of environment with the announcers on the loud speakers and the huge football field.

Another downfall this year was the fact that they split up North and South Campus and had separate assemblies for each. Although this allowed for the pep rally to be held in the gym, it really divided the school. Homecoming, in my opinion, is a time for the school to unite and show spirit as a whole. By having separate assemblies, we severed the tie between our already divided school. With all kids involved it gives a chance for upperclassmen and underclassmen to interact with each other.

I thought that this year, a weak point of the assembly was the dance off. It has become a tradition for Homecoming assembly to have a dance off between the sports team. For me, since my freshman year, the dance off has become something I look forward to. However, this year there were only three teams participating. It was a lot weaker than previous years and not as exciting. Plus, the music was quiet, which took away from the excitement.

Another downfall was having the assembly in the middle of the day rather than at the end. In the years past, it was nice to get school all out of the way for the week and then go to the pep assembly were we got all excited about the football game that night and the Homecoming Dance the next day. However, having classes after the assembly kind of brought down the mood a lot when we were forced to tone down the excitement and focus in school for the rest of the day.

Overall, the homecoming assembly was not at its best this year. I thought it has been stronger and more organized in years past, and could use improvement in the future.