March 2021
By Joanna Toledo, Staff Reporter
This school year KAC decided to make a new elective for our students: a cheer team, for the first time at KAC. This year the pandemic has taken a big toll on all of us, forcing us to make drastic changes. We’ve from learning in class, being taught in-person, to being taught virtually. But the new cheer team presents an opportunity for KIPPsters to try something new, and to be more involved in school events and support our school soccer, basketball, volleyball teams. The people who are in charge of this are Ms. Santiago, one of our Spanish teachers, and sophomore Valeria Velasco.
KAC does not offer as many electives or extracurricular activities as some public schools. For example, we have no baseball team or drill team, and we don’t have foreign language classes other than Spanish. So Cheer Team would be a new experience for our students and something additional for them to be involved in. While learning has been difficult during the pandemic, hopefully the cheer team makes KIPPsters’ high school experience more fun.
To get more information, we spoke to Velasco, the team’s captain.
How did the KAC Cheer Team get started?
Valeria Velasco: Me and some friends talked over the summer and started to talk to Ms. Lopez about creating a cheer team at Collegiate. During the first semester we got a sponsor, Ms. Santiago, and everything started building up from there.
Who can join the cheer team?
VV: Anyone is able to join! Gender or anything of that sort doesn’t matter.
Given the challenges with starting a club during COVID, how were prospective team members able to try out?
VV: Tryouts took place virtually and participants sent videos to our Flipgrid.
What are the requirements to be able to join?
VV: Requirements include passing all classes, going through tryouts, and having a physical.
What can we expect to see from the cheer team?
VV:You can expect a lot of school spirit, commitment to our community and fun!
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