On Wednesday, August 14, students began the 2024-25 school year. But the day before, upperclassmen who volunteered their time welcomed the incoming freshmen for a first half day of school.
The Link Crew is an organization for upperclassman which is advised by English teacher, Melissa Cupp. These students spend their time during the summer to prepare a friendly and fun environment for students that are new to our school.
Junior Nora Brown is a part of Link Crew and one of the students who helped at the event. She shared that in the beginning of August members of Link Crew met for two days of preparation to welcome students to school.
“We went from eight to 12 and Mrs.Cupp taught us how to be a good link leader, the procedure and everything,” Brown said.
Some of the activities that took place were a pep assembly, ice breaker games and tours of the school. These activities were to make students excited for school, get students to know each other better and build a community between underclassmen and upperclassmen.
Cupp stated that it can be important to build relationships between students on the first day by playing games.
“Some of the activities that I think are most important are name tag, because it’s so important for us to get the freshmen to know each other’s names and the upperclassmen’s names so I think that’s super important,” Cupp said. “The other one I think that’s really important is 64 squares, because it’s a difficult challenge and you can get frustrated, but it really brings out teamwork.”
Before these games took place though, there was a pep assembly in the gym to get new students excited to be a part of the community at West.
“My favorite part of the day was probably the pep assembly, because pep assemblies are fun and you get to be excited with the freshmen and kind of show them how it goes,” Brown said.
As these students get people excited to be at school, Cupp offers the advice that students get involved throughout their high school career.
“Find something, I feel like when we do the activity fair we show you our variety of things we have to offer, and I’m not athletic so I need to find something else to do, but maybe I could play chess or the uno club or the feminist club. Just put yourself out there,” Cupp said.
