Spirit days have been put on a hiatus by StuGo advisor Lerina Johnson and administration as a result of the MAGA controversy that occurred during the American-themed day on Mar 1. StuGo was asked to suspend spirit days for the remainder of the school year by administration so as not to have an like this event occur again.  

The incident regarding MAGA created a national stir and started a protest outside the gates of PHS on Mar 6. The affair sparked national attention with stories in the media.

“We just decided at that point and time that we needed to back-off of spirit days for the rest of this year,” assistant principal Kevin Ames, who oversees all campus activities, said.

As a result, Ames concluded that spirit days opened the door for the issue and came to the conclusion to put them on hold for the remainder of the year.

Senior StuGo president Grace Ogden explained:  “For the moment, we are just not gonna do sponsored spirit weeks by student government.”

Ames held a meeting with Johnson about the event and how the situation should be handled. “I had a little meeting with admin and because the last spirit day blew up on not just a local level but a national level, we decided to let things die down,” she said.

Ames suggested that StuGo should put spirit days on hold until next year. When Ames and Johnson had a meeting, members of StuGo had no say in the decision-making process.

“It was a meeting with Ms. Johnson and Mr. Ames,” junior Brintley Spencer, who will be student body president next year, explained. “It was advised things would kind of calm down.”

StuGo was understanding when the verdict was handed down. “They (StuGo) understood the reasoning and they saw first-hand some of the backslash,” Johnson said. The backlash came in the form of social media and criticism from local and national newspapers and cable news coverage.

However, spirit days were not suspended entirely from the school. Hype Squad was able to put together a spirit week just in time for prom, a week StuGo would normally organize. “I was impressed that kids took it upon themselves to have a spirit week,” Johnson said. “It was a negative thing, but I think our student body did a good job turning it into a positive thing.”

As for next year, administration plans to reduce the number of spirit weeks. The process

for spirit days will also be more thorough, Ames said.