Preparing for Olympics
January 23, 2017
Sharks, and Tigers, and Crocs… Oh My! On December 22nd these animal groups along with Fox, Wolf, and Owl house battled for the chance to win the House Olympics. The UAIS House Olympics is a day long event and pep assembly that unifies the entire school for one common goal, to be the winner. However, the Olympics is unlike any other event at the home schools and requires detailed planning on the part of the Student Advisory Board.
The Olympics is one of the school’s biggest events and improves every single year. However, achieving such a great Olympics takes a lot of hard work and planning on the part of the Student Advisory Board (SAB) who are in charge of planning and preparing for the Olympics year round.
Senior Pragya Thakur is the head of the Olympics planning committee created to help prepare for the House Olympics every year. She was able to outline the steps SAB must take in order to successfully prepare for the Olympics. She discussed how she typically begins preparing for the Olympics over the summer. “I have a huge binder full of all of the documents relating to the Olympics,” Pragya says, “we use this binder to work towards improvements for the next year.” While Pragya tends to do a lot of preliminary work during the summer most of the final decisions are not made until late November or early December. The decisions made by the board during the school year reinforce the decisions and ideas created during the entire Olympics process.
The planning is when you can really begin to see the Olympics start to form. This is the creation process where SAB begins coming up with what games will be played and what the ceremonies will be like. This is also the time when SAB begins to figure out what fundraiser will be used that year. SAB is sent various applications for fundraisers that will be used for junior and senior CAS projects. The board has to meet with each student who is applying for the fundraiser then collectively decide which fundraiser would be the best for our school and more specifically the Olympics. Mr. Layson, the IB program coordinator, noted, “the fundraiser they choose has to meet a certain set of criteria.” For example, it should allow students to be mindful on what is going on outside of the school’s walls.
Sophomore SAB member, Corey Reynolds gave his perspective as an underclassman on the planning process. He discussed how he typically begins preparing around one to two months before Olympics, usually after the freshman members are added to the board. He also noted that he believes that “assigning the games is probably the hardest part because there is a lot of seniority that goes into it.”
When asked what was the most important aspect to have for a successful Olympics, both Pragya and Mr.Layson agreed that it is communication. Pragya noted that in order for an Olympic event to be successful, “there must be excellent communication between the teachers and SAB members in charge of that event.”
With the help of the planning of the Student Advisory Board, UAIS gets to participate in a day of activities, pep assemblies, and fun twice a year. So this year when you’re joining in on the festivities of Olympics or simply pass an SAB member in the hallway, make sure you stop and thank them for all the hard work and planning they do.
