No one heard the football team sing “Ain’t No Mountain High” to fire up for tonight’s game. No one saw Semper’s presentation to announce the Homecoming theme. No one heard the cheerleaders’ new chants.

Despite ASB’s attempt to promote their first lunch rally of the year, which took place yesterday, few students chose to attend.

“The comment I kept hearing was ‘I’m not going to go to the rally if I don’t have to,’” ASB adviser Loreen Trevino said. “How come we don’t have rallies in the gym anymore?’ Changing the mindset is going to be a bit of a challenge.”

This is not the only rally-related challenge Trevino has faced. She is still fighting to get back the Senior Farewell Rally, which the Education Council decided to cut out of this year’s schedule.

“I have to protect every instructional minute,” said Linda Dillard, head of the science department.

Bea Savellano, head of the social sciences department, agreed with Dillard.

“Rallies are really disruptive to teaching,” Savellano said. “The students come back from the rallies really hyper.”

Both teachers pointed out that the last rally of the year used to be an academic one, but once those awards were moved to an evening program, the Education Council decided the rally should be cancelled.

Trevino, on the other hand, believes in the importance of rallies to build school spirit.

“If we’re going to reach everyone,” Trevino argued, “we’ve got to try all different angles. The greatest impact a student has may not happen within the four walls of the classroom.”

Trevino also emphasized that for Redondo’s 100th year, ASB should be able to continue the tradition of allowing the seniors to make a grand entrance into the gym.

“When I was told the senior rally was not going to happen, I was angered by the decision and frustrated because that farewell rally I viewed as a time to celebrate the accomplishments of seniors,” Trevino said.

As another alternative to taking up class time, Dillard suggested that all rallies be held at lunch, as they are at other schools like Mira Costa.

But Trevino refuted that switching to lunch rallies will “not happen overnight” because students are not used to them yet.

ASB hopes to hold lunch rallies in addition to the three or possibly four regular rallies.

“Adolescence is such a challenging time that if we can mix learning with fun and have the students equate that with enjoyment,” Trevino said, “maybe they’ll take with them from high school more than we thought we were giving them... so I am willing to be the rebel on this one.”