This year Trinity has made a change to its daily dress code with the introduction of Spirit Day Friday’s (or Friday Spirit Days). These semi-casual days offer students and teachers the chance to show off their school spirit after a week of wearing formal clothes.
Before the implementation of these spirit days, many teachers have expressed their desire for casual Fridays, where they can dress down and be more relaxed with their attire.
“As long as I’ve been here, there have been teachers who have said it would be nice on Friday to be a little more relaxed because that was already kind of a thing for teachers,” Dean of Upper School Kyle McGimsey said. “My dress code is every day I have to show up in, shirt, tie, pants, and dress shoes.”
In fact, the idea for semi-casual school spirit days at the end of the week is nothing new. Schools like Lake Highland have already implemented this in some way, shape, or form. From this, Student Body President and Senior David Bryskin was able to draw ideas from other schools and use it for Trinity Prep Friday Spirit Days.
“We started having monthly meetings with administration at the beginning of last year and this is something we pitched to them to try and get it to happen,” Student Body Vice President and Junior Connor Nanus said.
McGimsey was first approached by Bryskin and Nanus to help create and push for the idea of Friday Spirit Days.
In order to put this into a weekly dress code, there had to be multiple reasons on how it would better help students and faculty on campus. So, along with offering a more leisurely dress code, there was also another reason for this push.
“[David Bryskin] felt that it was an important thing and would do a lot for morale and a feeling of community in the school,” McGimsey said.
Now when Trinity students go walking around campus, they can see other students wearing the same shirts as them and feel somewhat connected with each other. Besides driving school spirit and allowing students and teachers to unwind a bit, Friday Spirit Days also promotes different school groups and sports.
“By giving a club or a team every Friday to be able to do that [showcase their group], they get a lot more opportunities to show the things that they’re really passionate about and the things that they’re really involved in,” McGimsey said. “We get excited to show off what we’re doing and what we’re involved in, [then] that could spark excitement and interest in others.”
Friday Spirit Days has huge potential to increase involvement in Trinity sports and clubs. By the end of last year, the final decision was made and Friday Spirit Days were finally approved. Many students around campus greatly appreciate it and feel like it will positively affect them.
“[From this] we are able to represent our school more,” 8th grader and Head of Middle School Student Council Tyler Tongson said. “We are able to wear our Trinity merch more and [other students] will feel the same way as me about this.”
