By Tessa Nacke
The 2023-2024 school year has begun, which brings a myriad of events hosted by the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) Associated Student Body (ASB) such as Aloha Dance, Homecoming, Bell Game and more. In addition, fall sports have begun in full swing.
With all of these events going on, ASB has decided to undergo a ‘social rebranding.’
“We just really think that this is our year for FVHS to really shine. We definitely have been … working really hard to build a school community through all the events that we are holding on campus,” ASB and Senate advisor Patricia Brewer said.
This year will mark Brewer’s second year as ASB advisor, and now that she knows the ropes, she is ready for action.
“It’s the third year back from COVID and we’re finally getting the ropes of everything, how everything’s supposed to be, and we’re just trying to get back into normalcy of things,” ASB treasurer Kayla Nguyen said.
For Nguyen, school culture has been lacking. But, with this rebrand, ASB hopes to connect and uplift everyone around the school to truly be Barons For Life.
“[We] want to become a big family because that would change the entire precedent of this campus. And that’s really what we want,” ASB president Joycemary Dang said.
For ASB, the first step of becoming a family is pouring into the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the name of the FVHS student section. ASB believes that once the Kingdom is active, the rest of the spirit will flourish.
“Obviously people are going to be hesitant to join in on spirit and like to connect as a whole school but that’s like all part of the process … all the school spirit is something that’s unnatural to [the students],” ASB parliamentarian Caleb Pham said.
ASB has been putting in long hours of effort and promotion, trying to rebuild what has been lacking. But, they don’t plan to just focus on sports teams.
“We want to support all programs on campus as well. So our presence has been known, made recently with sporting events, but we’d also like to attend, hopefully, theater productions, dance performances, competitions, Pep Squad, whatever,” Brewer said.
So, while it is not a physical rebrand, it is still crucial to the culture of the school. How willing are you to get involved in the school? Some say it’s a psychological need!
“It’s in our human nature, we crave being around people, we really do and we thrive when we are truly enjoying our experience. And I feel like that’s what our ASB is focused on this year is to really create that positive experience with everyone so as to allow all individuals on this campus to really thrive,” Brewer said.
In order to create this positive experience with school, Brewer notes that they need to realize where the focus should lie.
“I truly feel that in order to rebrand ourselves this year, we have to be truly focused on the idea that we are not here for ourselves. We are here for the campus, and that includes every single person on this campus,” Brewer said.
This goal is admirable, and many think it will change the school for the better. As a student, there are many ways to get involved: join a club, join a sports team and reach out to ASB with ideas.
“We want our image to be known. So people could come to us always coming with ideas so that we could execute them for the school. Because we don’t want to scare people away. We want to welcome them with open arms,” Nguyen said.
As the old saying goes, “You Only Live Once (YOLO).” With this in mind, get out of the comfort zone of a detached student. Go to events, go to games and make memories.
