Even though the fall season has begun, summer returned to the Archer campus Friday, Sept. 27, as the theme of the first Final Friday of the 2024-2025 school year.
Final Friday is a celebration that takes place on the last Friday of every school month, where the Student Council hosts themed activities, free food and ways to win spirit points in the courtyard. All eligible students may wear free dress on these days. In charge of organizing September’s Final Friday, ninth grade representatives Asha Parry, Sydney Lem and Sophie Salehi set up games, such as spike ball and “beach” volleyball, in the main courtyard, along with drinks and snacks.
The courtyard, decorated with beach balls, also featured a voter registration booth from Archer Activists and music played over the speakers. The ninth grade representatives met with their grade-level dean, Student Leadership advisor Lauren Sekula and the executive board to discuss plans and a theme for Final Friday.
“Most of the ideas [for Final Friday] come from us, but we want all the logistics and budget to work out,” Salehi said. “We talked to [Sekula] about bringing tables, snacks, tech and music.”
At first, Parry said she was hesitant to organize the first Final Friday of the year because it seemed stressful. Tenth, 11th and 12th grade representatives, along with the Student Council Executive Board, were able to choose when they would organize Final Friday before the ninth grade representatives. Perry said it was student council’s decision to implement this system for event planning.
Parry was middle school president and said the previous experience taught her and the former Class of 2028 representatives collaboration and teamwork skills.
“We definitely learned how to work together. We’re really good at teamwork, and we’re not scared to ask for help,” Parry said. “Asking for help was really easy. Coach Ferri was really supportive, and she let us know if we needed anything.”
Lem said she and her fellow representatives sent out an email asking for snacks for the celebration, but she sent it out later than expected. After this experience, Lem said she learned the importance of being timely and properly communicating with her fellow representatives.
“[I learned to] be decisive and communicate earlier. Communication is very important to not pushing things back,” Lem said. “We were lacking snacks because we sent out the email a week later [than intended].”
Despite the initial challenges that came with planning the first Final Friday of the year, Parry said she and the other representatives were able to run Final Friday smoothly.
“Planning the first Final Friday wasn’t really our choice but we’re good,” Parry said. “We learned to accept it, and we learned to work at a quick pace.”
