On Thursday, March 28th, 2019 JSEC once again tried to out do itself by holding an all school Pep Rally.  This years Pep Rally had multiple hosts:  Joshua Recio, Kyra Benson, and of course nobody can forget our class president, Ty’relle Stephens.    We also had a returning student, Joel Pegeuro,  come back to hype of the crowd and maintain a good flow throughout.   Joel took care of the Seniors and Juniors and Kyra took care of the Freshmen and Sophomores!  The Pep Rally was held the last block of the day to maximize the fun and not allow students to return to class after celebrating.  The main goal was to unite all classes, promote entire school spirit, and celebrate and introduce Spring Sports.

The  1st introductions started with mega excitement as our very own Unified Basketball Team busted out of the locker room upon having their names being announced.  Our Unified Team was started a few years ago to support our special needs athletes and to promote inclusion across the school.  The game quickly began and this set the afternoon off with lots of energy from the crowd.  With each and every basket celebrations erupted.   From the sounds of the crowd, the student althletes felt like rock stars.  By the end of the 5-Minute demo game, all students and faculty  were on their feet cheering.  The mini game kept all attendees attention and was by far the best way to start off the Pep Rally.   To top it off at the end of the game there was a special surprise for one student athlete.

The Kindness Crew and Ms. Zolli had prepared a special surprise for Christian A, who is a student athlete on the Unified Team here at JSEC.  They had prepared huge signs and a cheer in which they would have students all shout in unison while recording it.  As many know who know Christian, he is an avid WWE John Cena fan.  Christian gets excited whenever John Cena is even mentioned and his overall dream is to meet him and have him show him some of his moves.   The entire school decided to send Jon a message that read: “John Cena please come to JSEC and make Christians’ dream come true”.

After this part the momentum was clearly growing, and the Pep Rally was off to a great start.  Then Joel Peguero, went over to each grade level class to hype up the crowd even more.  He started with the Freshmen, then Sophomores, then headed over to the Juniors, and finally ran over to the Seniors to see which class was the loudest.  Overall it appeared that the Sophomores had it in the bag until the Juniors ripped out quite a louder than loud group cheer.  Juniors definitely won the cheer battle this year and will most certainly be returning next year to defend their title.

Following this portion of the Rally  there was a pie-eating contest where a representative from each class devoured a pie.  The pies were chocolate cream and looked delicious.  Many of us were thinking ‘how can you wasted such a delicious-looking pie’, and it was chocolate.    There was chocolate and crème all over each contestants face which made us laugh pretty hard.  It was even stuck in contestants hair and eyebrows.

At this point there the contest ended and there was a quick clean up.  Now it was time to introduce the Spring Athletes.  Those teams included:  Outdoor Track, the Unified Basketball Team,  Baseball, & Softball.   Mr. Nadeau grabbed the microphone and began to hype up the crowd.  He called out each team and the coaches who received overwhelming cheers from the crowd.   It was then Mr. Nadeau reminded all JSEC students to bring that same enthusiasm to the games and encouraged everyone to attend the upcoming spring sporting events.

The day then transitioned into a crazy relay race called “Izzy Dizzy”.  This game was actually a make-shift obstacle course where students from each grade had to weave in and out of obstacles, then at the half-way point they had to spin like crazy with a lacrosse stick,  and finally return to the beginning, obviously being very dizzy.   It was funny because many of the participants could not return in a straight line and wobbled back to start.    This event was pretty quick and was followed by student-decided teacher superlatives.   Many teachers were called up for awards which ranged from the nicest teacher to the teacher who allows students to allow their rooms while out of their own class.

After the teacher superlatives, Ms. Lombardi and her dance crew stormed the gym floor.  Music was blasting and the dancers began their dance routine.  You can tell that a lot of work was put into the choreography because the dancers were very much in sync and on point.  Most felt the routine knocked it out of the park and it left many wondering why we don’t have more of these routines at different events.  We are hoping this allows for more dance routine events for the 2019-2020 upcoming school year.

We then had Natalya Gomes perform a “Prom-Posal”.  This is when a student very publically asks another student to the Prom.  No worries the “Prom-Posal” was a success and the answer was a resounding “Yes”.   This took place so quickly that unfortunately some in the crowd missed it.  The Rally then was starting to wrap up but wanted to end with a game-show like event with the  JSEC version of Family Fewd.  The questions were all based on daily life here at JSEC.   One example of a question was “Name something that is sold at JSEC that is not supposed to be” and the #1 answer was “Candy for the sports teams and Belize trip”.  Just as the last question was being asked the bell rang signaling the close of the day.  Students headed towards the exits and were happy, laughing, and it was a clear sign that the rally had been a complete success.