The smell of burgers wafted through the air and lettuce, tomato, and condiments lined long tables spanning the terrace. Both students and teachers mingled, holding popsicles and cookies, while chatting and sharing the woes and joys that the first week of school had brought them. After grabbing a quick bite, the students made their way to the spikeball nets and volleyball courts on the quad. The Associative Student Body (ASB) Welcome Barbecue was in full swing.
After a long and tiring first week of school, ASB, sponsored by Faculty Advisors Ms. Nicole Uhland and Ms. Dolores Williamson, arranged an afternoon welcome barbeque to kick off the new school year on Friday, August 23. Students of all grades gathered to celebrate the start of classes through various quad activities and a delicious barbecue.
The event was planned to be a time to come together and foster a sense of community. Ms. Uhland explained, “It is a time to celebrate the start of the year with food and friends.” Food was certainly a focus, with tables on the terrace buried under platters of hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, condiments, and cookies. For a refreshing option, there were pitchers of lemonade and coolers loaded with fruit-flavored popsicles, including strawberry and sour cherry.
Most people found out about the event through seeing it in action. Alice Zhu (‘29) said, “We walked over here [because] we heard music and we smelled food.” Sixth graders Naomi Gallegos and Natalie Moore added, “We went to get food and then we came back to this, and we were like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool,’ so we sat down here and our other friends were enjoying the food.”
Although many middle schoolers enjoyed the event, the high school attendance at the ASB welcome was not as high as expected.
“We didn’t promote this event as well as we promote a majority of our events,” ASB Spirit Representative Kendall Kearney (‘25) explained. Social media was the main way the event was advertised. “One of those reasons was that there was no notice about it in the bulletin, which is how all the middle schoolers find out about it because a good amount of them don’t have social media.”
Sports commitments were also a reason for lower attendance. “This event landed on the Battle of Pearl Street Day, as well as a big game for field hockey versus Harvard Westlake, so that’s already a lot of the student body that has obligations after school,” Kendall said. “And even if people don’t have a game, all high school athletes have practice right after school, so that’s just a lot of people who aren’t able to make it.”
ASB is aware of the students’ after-school commitments, so they are trying to take steps to increase attendance without interfering with their busy schedules. One way that Kendall said they could have promoted the event better was to advertise it further in advance. She explained, “We also should have given an announcement at the assembly on the first day of school, just letting people know because I think it really came down to the fact that not a lot of people knew about the event.” And as ASB Secretary Yina Shate (‘26) mentioned in regard to all the issues, “We’re learning. We’re much more conscious [now], we’re humans, we make mistakes.”
Yina also thought the shortage of time to prepare contributed to the lack of attendance. She thinks “pre-coordinating with ASB members that didn’t have after-school commitments could have helped the organization of the event.”
Despite some issues, ASB and the student body are excited about the future. Alice, Naomi, and Natalie all agree, and look forward to the new opportunities that the school year will bring. Alice claimed, “I’m excited for clubs, and X Period, and meeting people like me.” Similarly, Natalie and Naomi anticipated “making new friends.” While the middle schoolers were excited to make new friends, Ellen Wang (‘25) was excited to enjoy her final year at Bishop’s. “Since I’m a senior, I want to be able to make the most of my time here,” she said.
ASB members also have goals and expectations for this school year. “Last year, we kind of kickstarted the spirit thing,” Yina began, “You’ve heard Tim [LaBrucherie (‘25)], our Dungeon Rep, you’ve heard Declan [O’Donovan (‘25)] in his speech to get elected [as ASB President], you’ve heard a lot of us say this multiple times: we really want school spirit.”
