School Spirit and The High School Experience
More confident
91%
More likely
to be leaders
90%
More fulfilled
73%
Happier
88%
More active in
their communities
87%
Principals report that
compared to students
with lower levels of
school spirit, those who
have a great deal of
spirit are:
School spirit is a multi-faceted concept with different
meanings to different people. To offer a birds-eye view of
the issue, we have developed a “school spirit index” for
students based on the following four attributes: 1) students’
self-assessment of their level of school spirit; 2) students’
self-reported pride in their school; 3) students’ propensity to
get other students to be active in school events; and
4) students’ plans to return to their school for special events
after graduation. Students were grouped into categories
of high, moderate
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, and low school spirit based on their
combined responses to these four components.
From
academic achievement
to
general happiness
,
there is a positive relationship to school spirit. Principals
overwhelmingly feel that it is important that they personally
build school spirit at their school (89%) and that higher levels
of school spirit is tied to higher student achievement. And
parents who say their child has a lot of school spirit are
more likely than parents who don’t to report that their child
performs above average in school academically compared
to other students (61% vs. 31%, respectively).
Four out of five high school principals believe that school
spirit is a key measure of an effective school administration.
“School spirit is
the heartbeat of the school
,” one principal
explained. “It can make or break a school year.”
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