Arcadia High School (AHS) football games and assemblies are always accompanied by our school’s Pep Squad. Whether they’re cheering from the sidelines or performing for the Homecoming assembly, they never fail to boost our school spirit.

The entire team consists of 40 girls. Each of them choose which of the three sections they want to be in: flag, cheer, or song.

“There are 14 members on the song team. I feel very close with my song team,” said junior Claire Zhang.

Since they spend the most time with their own group, compared to the amount of time spent with the other two, the group they are a part of ends up becoming a kind of family to many of the members of the team.

The countless hours spent a week working on the choreography with each other brings them closer together. However, it’s still a huge commitment. Each member of the team has to stay after school for hours just to do choreography. Sometimes, they’re required to practice early in the morning before school even starts. Many of the girls have to stay after school for practice and then perform for games later that same day.

Not only does the team perform at school events such as assemblies and football games, they also do SHARP competitions. At these competitions, the song team will perform and compete against other song groups from other schools; the cheer team will perform against other cheer groups, etc.

Their performances for the school are great for representing our school spirit. They create a community amongst themselves based on the shared excitement and pride for Pep Squad and AHS.

“Being on the team is very fun but extremely time consuming; even though it requires a lot of work, it’s still very memorable to be able to perform with the team,” Zhang also stated.

Photo by AUSD Digital Communications Intern SOFIA NAGY