Eden Cho

Posing for the crowd, the best dressed students from each class wait for the teachers to vote on their favorite outfits. Freshman Chloe Deng, who dressed up as a baby for “Dress Your Age” day, was one of the nominees for best dressed. “[It] was really cool seeing how much effort people put into representing their class,” Deng said.

Cheers erupted in the stands during the first pep rally of homecoming week as the spirit day’s best dressed students were announced. Spirit week is a well-known tradition at Jefferson that allows students to dress up and get excited for homecoming. When you walk into the school, you may see flashes of class colors, fun costumes and other ways Jefferson students show their school spirit. This year’s themes include “Dress Your Best,” “Dress Your Age,” “Group Day,” “Class Theme Day” and “Class Color Day.” These were decided by the 2026 Senior Class Council. 

The best dressed students—who are nominated and voted for by their peers—receive awards at pep rallies and earn points for their class. At the end of homecoming week, the points are added up for each class and a winner is announced. One of the new spirit days introduced this year was dress your age, where freshmen dress as babies, sophomores as toddlers, juniors as teenagers and seniors as senior citizens.

“We kept seeing the trend where teachers dress like students and students dress like teachers,” 2026 Class Council Vice President Esha Madamalla said.  “But we wanted to make a play on it [to] get all the different classes involved. We thought it’d be fun to do senior citizens and freshmen as babies. We wanted to incorporate our teachers too, which is why we got our teachers involved with that as well.”

The 2026 Class Council wanted to implement new themes into this year’s spirit week by taking inspiration from popular trends and allowing students to get creative.

“We wanted to do fun and unique spirit days this year, and not just traditional ones,” Madamalla said. “It’s just something new and fun. We thought more people would [want to get] involved.”

Being a senior at Jefferson reflects the many accomplishments and challenges students have endured. The 2026 Class Council wanted to make their last spirit week the best one yet.

“[Our] goal is just to make it a lasting memory for all the seniors,” Madamalla said. “I want them to walk out knowing, ‘this is the best we could have done.’ This is the peak of high school. It’s worth it to be a senior.”

Additionally, students at Jefferson voted on a theme for their class, with the freshman theme being Minions, sophomore theme being Ninjago and the junior theme being Star Wars. 

“I think our senior class theme is really good. It’s Disney,” senior Student Government Association (SGA) President Jocelyn Huie said. “I’m ready to see everyone dressed up as Disney princesses.”

Along with the Class Council, SGA played a part in planning and promoting this year’s spirit week. They created social media posts encouraging students to participate and also made a poster that was hung in Nobel Commons.

“From [the] SGA standpoint, we just want to promote spirit days a little bit more this year,” Huie said. “Post more stuff about the spirit days, take photos of the best dressed people, and then have people vote on Instagram. [We’d like] some more interaction.” 

One of the many leadership opportunities for freshmen is Froshcomm, a team that organizes freshmen homecoming events. In addition to forming committees such as “Spirit Banner” and “Musical Extravaganza,” Froshcomm worked on advertising this year’s spirit week and increasing student participation.

“[At] Jefferson, homecoming week is extremely legendary; so, people go all out,” Froshcomm member Ahaana Sabari Rajan said. “We just hope to get people to get out there.”