Clash of the Classes will be held Friday, May 21 with added events and protocol to meet COVID-19 regulations.
Student Council president Sarah George said given COVID-19 protocol, the event will look a little different this year. Unlike Clash of the Classes in past years when students were in the gym, this year’s event will be held on the football field, and students will be seated on the bleachers and required to double mask and socially distanced, she said.
Student Council adviser Michael Featherstone said Student Council thought it would be a fun way to end the year without interfering with other obligations.
“The decision was to simply put it on the last Friday of school, so we could still have Clash of the Classes and do it outside safely and not interfere with people cramming,” Featherstone said.
Featherstone said that while Student Council was eager to organize the Clash of the Classes event, it was just a matter of navigating outside forces like COVID-19.
George added that there will be a strict “no moshing” policy at this year’s event. Student Council is trying to avoid a mosh pit celebration and other close contact events like the ones that occurred in 2019, she said.
“We can’t have the contact events like the three-legged race and the wheelbarrow race…but we will have new events like a water balloon toss and a field goal kicking competition,” George said.
Featherstone said the homecoming court will still be crowned at the Clash of the Classes event because the high school went back to remote learning before they could be.
“We normally crown the court at the homecoming football game, but of course we didn’t do that this year because of COVID,” he explained.
Clash of the Classes was never intended to be a charity event, but rather an event that celebrates the culmination of charity month, Featherstone explained. There might have been charity components during the event, but those were related to charity month and not the event, Featherstone added.
Because of this, he said, there will not be a charity component during this year’s Clash of the Classes.
He added that while the event will “eat into each class period on that Friday by roughly 10 minutes,” considering how much everyone lost this year, he said, the loss of 10 minutes is worth some “excitement and fun.”
Junior Gus Pitstick noted the differences between this year’s Clash of the Classes and those from years past.
“I will miss everyone packing into the gym and the chanting,” Pitstick said. “The chants echoing off the walls added to the competitive atmosphere.”
However, Pitstick said that he is looking forward to some of the changes.
“I’m excited for the field goal competition, and because not many people have taken field goals before, it will be a funny event to watch,” he said.
While acknowledging that this event would look different, Pitstick said he believes that the new Clash of the Classes model will work well.
“It’s the principle of coming together and creating a sense of class pride that makes the event important,” he said.
George said the Student Council knew they needed to give the students a “taste of normalcy” in a year that has been anything but normal.
“We knew we wanted to have a Clash of the Classes because it’s our biggest event of the year,” she said.
Featherstone is excited about the new look of the event, but mentioned that the goal of the event is still the same.
“What Clash of the Classes is about is school spirit and class spirit and fun and blowing off some steam in a fun and memorable way,” he said.
