On the first day back from spring break, Community High School kicked off its second annual Forum Competition Week. From a high-stakes round of musical chairs, to a 3 vs. 3 basketball tournament, to a student-organized scavenger hunt and much more, students were able to represent and earn points for their forums in a variety of ways.
Ultimately, the goal of Forum Competition Week is to bond forums and build school pride. Last year’s Forum Council co-presidents Mathew Castillo and Zoë Simmons pioneered the idea as a strategy to bring forums back to their legendary pre-pandemic level of cohesion and “invigorate” the student body.
“It’s about breathing life back into forum,” said Ryan Silvester, Forum Council advisor. “It’s a really great opportunity for forumettes to bond and to get some school spirit going again.”
Despite missing the final half of the week due to the overlapping CHS Jazz trip, Yager forum junior Sean Kennison felt that the event was effective in achieving its objective. Kennison focused on giving his all in the basketball tournament to secure points for his forum and was glad for the positive atmosphere surrounding the contest.
“Even though I could only play for one day, I really felt the hype and the excitement of it all,” Kennison said. “It was just a beautiful day and a perfect environment.”
Overall, Kennison appreciated the opportunity to connect with his classmates outside of an in-class setting in addition to the change of pace from a traditional school week at CHS. Going forward, he hopes to see a wider variety of sports added to the docket and thinks the newly grass-covered back lawn would be the perfect venue for a soccer or football game, perhaps.
Forum leaders enjoyed it just as much as forumettes. Forum leader Jessika Whiteside thinks inter-forum competitions are a way to improve attendance and contribute to intra-forum bonding. Since last year, Whiteside noticed an increased sense of motivation among her students and a willingness in her forumettes to help with anything for their forum.
“It’s good to have something to do cohesively,” Whiteside said. “We can enjoy it and make it what we want to make it.”
The event is organized entirely by Forum Council, who repeated and built on aspects of what worked well last year and replaced some other facets. For example, last year’s art competition and enormous game of “Simon Says” were replaced by musical chairs and a talent show finale to wrap up the week.
Annie Zheng, a freshman in the Kiley forum — who were the week’s ultimate winners — believes it was her forum’s enthusiasm that made all the difference. While Zheng was drawn to CHS because of its smaller size, she has been pleasantly surprised by the numerous all-school events. Over the course of the week, Zheng especially had fun hunting for ducks throughout the halls.
“There were just a lot of fun activities that we could do together,” Zheng said. “My forum really likes duck hunting. It’s all they talk about in the chats. They’re really intense about it and I’m always looking around frantically when I’m in the hallway too.”
Forum Competition Week is for everyone. Whether it’s showing off your basketball skills, playing guitar or solving riddles, the aim of the week is to offer opportunities that all students are excited to take part in. Just like this year’s Halloween dance’s multiple activities demonstrated, CHS is a place for every student to enjoy themselves and participate in things they like.
“It’s certainly unique, and it’s certainly different,” Silvester said. “No other school does anything like this, so why can’t we inject more fun into work? We’re allowed to be cool here at Community ”
As for the future of Forum Competition Week, Silvester and Forum Council plan to continue organizing and expanding this tradition and would love to hear input on the event from all of CHS.
