Dress up, be on time and pass your classes. That’s how you become a spirit winner.

Vice Principal Sheila McCollum explains how she and her fellow administrators pick the grade level as the spirit winner of the week.

“It’s actually so simple, it’s all in a rubric,” McCollum said.

The school’s grading server sends McCollum a record reporting each grade’s absences and tardies. This category is weighted the heaviest, accounting for 50% of the overall resulting number.

“It’s all data based so it’s not very subjective. We didn’t want anyone thinking we were biased so it’s all numbers,” McCollum said.

The winner of the spirit stick also goes into consideration for the ‘Best of the Best’ winner. After calculating class theme participation and pep rally involvement, the spirit winner is announced every Monday.

During the summer, all class officers met with the administrative staff to discuss improvements for the school year.

“We felt like we needed to do something to get more kids involved in school spirit,” McCollum said.

After deciding on a rubric with categories, they left judging up to community members. Every week has a different judge, randomly chosen. Past judges have been Coach Craig Jordan and Officer Kevin Flake.

“It has exceeded our expectations from last year,” McCollum said. “Rewarding the winner with an earlier lunch time seemed to do the trick.”

The administrators plan to continue the “Best of the Best” competition after football season and add categories such as least amount of zeros or lowest failing percentage.

“We will continue the competition in hopes the student body will soon be spirited without an incentive,” McCollum said. “We just want to build DHS’ reputation to be the most spirited in Wise County.”