Meagan So, Staff Writer

Administration and ASB  have been making some changes to the rally format this year, which students were able to get a small preview of in the first rally on Aug. 23, 2024. It was a little disappointing, and wasn’t as entertaining and fun as I had been led to believe. 

I had previously been told by upperclassmen that rallies were super exciting school events to really look forward to every week, so the slightly disorganized, boring rally I attended wasn’t what I had been expecting at all. Fellow student, Suri Rastani (9) agrees, saying, “I personally think that the rally was underwhelming while also being overhyped. The games were also under-prepared and boring to watch.”

My interview with Siena Landucci (10) had a similar response. She said, “Before this year, everyone had a seat. The current rallies kind of suck. I don’t really like their new games. It was really boring and I don’t want to stay on the floor next time.” Another student, Nour Halloway (9) also agreed, saying, “It wasn’t as cool as I expected it to be, or fun. I felt like it was a waste of time because I could have been in Flex doing my school work.” I definitely agree with their opinions and relate to some of their remarks, and this had me wondering why these changes were happening in the first place.

Some of the reasons for these changes were because of dangerous things that happened in past rally events. ASB president, Kalyssa Chu (12) talked about the issue, saying, “…last year there were a couple incidents at our rallies where our administration believed students demonstrated, I guess, just unsafe behaviors.” One of the incidents she was referring to was a fight that had happened last year between some of the old sophomores and seniors. After interviewing Kylie Hyunh (11), she explained the situation, saying, “From what I heard, someone ripped up the 2026 sign and there was a particular sophomore that rushed towards the seniors. Eventually, both classes ended up rushing towards each other.” 

“[Admin] decided that they didn’t like the competitive aspect of our rallies, and they wanted to focus more on building community, rather than having grades compete against each other.” Kalyssa commented.  It would make sense to change parts of school rallies that were dangerous, but did the administration really have to take away all our fun? I completely understand that the safety of Mills students is extremely important, but with admin completely ridding our rallies of anything that could have even the slightest chance of hurting someone’s feelings, it might have a much different effect than its original intention. These rallies could have been events that kept students going and motivated them, but now, with all the fun aspects of it gone, the students complaining about how terrible the new format is, and more, these new extreme changes might be doing more harm than help.

When asked about the specific changes admin requested and made to rallies this year, Kalyssa told me, “They wanted students sitting, but we’re going to bring standing back to the students’ rally. Another thing was negative cheers and chants are an absolute no.” The thing was, according to upperclassmen, competitive chants used to be a fun piece of rallies, and although they were negative towards other teams, it was friendly competition and boosted morale and spirit. Kalyssa continued, “All of our previous rallies got a thing called the rally stick, and it was kind of like, what you compete for. That’s gone. There are no winners, you can’t win a rally. We don’t have judges and you don’t win points.” This was extremely disappointing as the rally stick used to be a crazy important symbol in past rallies. It was explained by Megan Lo (11) as “a coveted thing at Mills”. In my opinion, it was really saddening to hear that it won’t be coming back and that my grade wouldn’t be able to experience the rally stick competitions like in previous years.

However, ASB is working towards returning rallies back to their original formats as much as possible. “The first rally was more like an assembly, just kind of to get people together during the first week of school…We hear you, and we are definitely listening to what everyone is saying,”  Kalyssa said,  “and as your student body representatives, we understand where you’re coming from. We also share similar feelings in that, and just know that we are working really hard behind the scenes to try to make rallies as fun as possible for all the parties while still keeping administration happy and making sure all students are in a safe and welcoming environment.”