St. Robert’s school year is full of diverse activities, and kids of different ages often rally together during special times of the year, like on Field Day. In the past, these groups were filled with kids who didn’t know each other, which could make the activities a bit awkward. However, now students can have fun during cross-grade level activities with the school of spirit teams! Spirit teams bring together students of different grades to work on fun activities every month. Every kid has an assigned group, which they will keep until they graduate. The activities during spirit team meetings are always fun and creative, and these activities are all designed by a group of teacher leaders in the building. These teachers form the Climate and Culture leadership team. The original creator of the spirit teams idea is Mrs. Luna. The inspiration of the spirit teams was from Field Day when the school had been making the cross-grade level team for one day each year. Mrs. Luna thought of spirit teams as being a good team-building experience for the whole community.

Mrs. Luna also made designed the teams so that “[y]ou get to meet other people from different grades,” states Max from the 7th-grade class. The new teams allow students to meet older and younger students, and then as the team meets frequently, they can build friendships with each other. Since the teams have people from almost every grade on them, the smaller kids can now look up to the older kids and learn new things. The older kids can now teach the younger kids to be nice and work as a team.

Not only do these teams build friendships, but the spirit teams also produce good community building projects. The spirit teams were originally intended for team building. Team building is great because it will strengthen the school by promoting working as a team. The teams then create something together to impact the whole school. For example, the latest project had students decorating giant letters. Their letters can be seen in Reilly Hall, where they remind students to “Always Choose Kindness.” Messages like these that come from the spirit teams, can help improve the community as a whole.  

The new St. Robert spirit teams bring lots of joy into the building as students are able to meet new friends. This team building program can be used in St. Robert students’ everyday lives as well, as the messages of community and kindness spill over into daily actions. Spirit teams bring good messages to St. Robert.