Spring Fling 2.0 will be held April 18 to 22 this year as a full week. Spring Fling is traditionally a weeklong event with dress-up days and games for students and staff. Last year, Gunn Student Executive Council (SEC) cut Spring Fling down to Powderpuff, a football game between students, and Block Party, a carnival after school on Friday.
This year, SEC is bringing it back with full force. According to Environmental Commissioner senior Jarrod Hsu, the return of Spring Fling is for students to relax and enjoy themselves. “We wanted to have a week in the spring to increase school unity and also to take away from the stress of finals and AP (Advanced Placement) testing,” Hsu said. “After spring break, a lot of people start to feel a third quarter slump, so hopefully this event will combat that slump by increasing spirit and make coming to school more fun.”
Reflecting this purpose of relieving student stress, Student Activities Director Lisa
Hall said that this Spring Fling won’t be focused on class competition and instead concentrate on school unity. “One of the things SEC wanted to try and do this year was not have a competitive type of a week, but something that can just be for fun and people will be interested in doing because it isn’t the typical lunch game where we have the four classes competing,” Hall said.
“We wanted to have a week in the spring to increase school unity and also to take away from the stress of finals and [Advanced Placement] (AP) testing.”
—Environmental Commissioner Jarrod Hsu
Hsu said SEC hopes that with a non-competitive mindset, more students will participate in Spring Fling. “We’re definitely trying to make it a bigger event than it has been in past years and also have it be more inclusive by letting more people participate in the activities,” he said. “Also, we’re changing a few of the traditional events, like the block party.” According to Hsu, Powderpuff will be replaced with a game of Rocks.
Dress-ups will be the same for all classes and include more common themes. “[SEC] plans to have daily dress-ups, but they will be simpler dress-ups,” Hall said. “One of the dress-up themes that they had planned is a pajama day, which isn’t very complicated to do so everybody should be able to participate, and they hope to have more participation that way.”
New, more inclusive activities are also in the planning stage. “Wednesday’s lunchtime activity is going to be a staff-versus-student dodgeball game,” Hsu said. “On Thursday, there will be Capture the Flag or Rocks on the field, and on Friday, we’re going to shoot school-wide music video.”
However, because of a recent outlaw of inflatable bounce houses, the bounce houses will not be used this year. “It is my understanding that a Palo Alto city ordinance was passed that has restricted use of bounce houses and inflatables in the city,” Hall said. “Therefore, the district is complying with the city’s ordinance and has informed both high schools that they cannot rent inflatables for use at school events.”
Hall anticipates that students will be as excited about Spring Fling as they are about Homecoming. “I do think that the competition piece of Homecoming brings a level of interest that is difficult to duplicate without competition,” she said. “But I would hope people would just be ready in the spring to do a fun week of dress-ups and activities.”
Hom agreed that Spring Fling could be very popular among students this year. “Hopefully, with good publicity, easy themes and fun events, we can revive Spring Fling to its former glory and we can have a good week,” he said.
