By: Lauren Mitchell
Owlfeed News Editor

For years, students have packed themselves into the New Gym for pep assemblies, with students from all grades sitting in their sections of the gym. However, as of recently, the fire department has told Agua Fria that the amount of students in the gym is a fire hazard, which is why our school will now hold two pep assemblies.

The same thing happened at Millennium High School. They have a bigger student population than Agua Fria so rather than having two pep assemblies, they hold theirs on their football field.  

The schedule on Friday Oct. 19 for Agua Fria was a little bit crazy because of the new pep assembly schedule on top of having the homecoming parade with a longer second hour. If the school decides to have the split assembly again, the classes will probably be longer than the classes we had on Friday.

While the Juniors and Seniors went to advisory, the Freshmen and Sophomores went to the pep assembly, then after an hour they switched. These two pep assemblies mean that band, student council, cheer, and pom had to do everything twice. The pep assembly was twice as much work for all of them.

There were lots of pros to having two pep assemblies, the most obvious being more room for the students to sit. Instead of having to squish together or sitting in the aisle of the stands, students were able to have their own personal space.

A sophomore at Agua Fria, Josie Bundy, said, “There’s not that many negatives, it was more spaced out and less hectic.” Before, it took forever to get everyone inside the gym and sit down, then when it is time to leave, it would take even longer to get out.

“I like it because there is going to be more room for us juniors and seniors,” said Carlos Johnson, a junior at Agua Fria. “But at the same time, having two pep assemblies takes time out of really important class time.”

There are a lot of downfalls of this schedule, like less class time and having those students who perform in the pep assembly do so twice. One huge negative would be less spirit since the entire school isn’t together to play games organized by student council, cheer for the spirit stick,or show spirit for their graduating class.

Even though there was more room for students to sit, there was a huge empty space at the ends of the stands where the other classes would normally sit. “It felt kind of empty without the sophomores and freshmen,” said Amber Chico, another junior at Agua Fria.

No matter the negatives of the split pep assemblies, the pep assembly was entertaining for students and the school did not have a fire hazard in the gym.