Spirit Week, for those who are new and don’t know yet, is a week near the end of the school year where the student body separates into its four classes and fight to be the best. The classes are fighting for spirit points, which are the points that are used in spirit week, and the class with the most spirit points is the victor.

The way the classes fight is through a series of different activities, games, and competitions culminating on carnival day. The spirit challenges that happen during assembly are where classes can be awarded their very first spirit points, but there are many more.

In spirit week the challenges start with the penny wars, which is a war between all the T.A’s. If you put pennies into your classes jars it counts as points but any other type of money it counts as negative points.

The next part of Spirit Week is the survivor challenge. The survivor challenge is like the show Survivor but with a Harwood twist; students apply to be a part of it but only a small number get in and these elite few are put to the test by going through several challenges each day of spirit week, and then a sleep-over filled with challenges and games on Thursday. The student to win survivor wins tons of spirit points for that student’s class.

On the fourth day of Spirit Week there is a battle of the bands and a poetry slam which are both fought over fiercely and the winners of battle of the bands get to play at Friday’s assembly.

The last day of Spirit Week is carnival day; this is a day shortened classes in the morning and is full of food and games in the afternoon. Carnival day is a very busy day filled with so many activities it’s hard to get to them all and not miss out but it is all going to be all right because this newspaper has a guide for you. The gym is a hive of activity and games on carnival day, it has a large inflatable obstacle course for students to race each other in and an inflatable jousting ring, it also has a badminton tournament on the other side of the gym. Outside of the gym is a snow cone cart and a popcorn machine. In the library there is a chess tournament. In the middle of the day there is a bbq on the front lawn. In the afternoon there is a volleyball tournament in the valley ball pit along with a tug of war tournament and an ultimate frisbee tournament all of which are held outside in the front and side fields. In the middle of the day there is a large bbq cookout in front of the school, this cookout has tons of delicious food including burgers, juice, cookies, fruits, and lots more food.

At the end of the carnival day, in past years, there would be a large assembly in which the different classes would present their skits, survivor would come to its finalists with a grand finale, and the final winners of Spirit Week would be declared and get their class engraved on the ugly kilt. This year the assembly has been changed so that instead of having skits the classes will present a school appropriate music video and this will be held in the gym instead of the auditorium.