Written by senior Andres Zimmermann
As a senior, this year’s Lip Dub was the second one of my high school career. The Feb. 2018 Lip Dub during my sophomore year was a well-organized event. I simply requested my preferred club and then stood with that group during filming.
The same cannot be said for what I saw as a club officer this year. While Leadership clearly put a great deal of hard work into organizing the event, some things did not go so well. The first issue was inconsistent communication. At the beginning of the year, club officers were informed that clubs were not required to participate in the Lip Dub. One of the clubs I run, Harvard Model Congress, was not interested in participating, so I focused on the other club I run, Science Club. With only a few weeks remaining until Lip Dub, it came to my attention that Leadership changed their minds and that all clubs were required to participate, and I was now the point person for Harvard Model Congress. This was after students signed up for groups in their English classes. As a result, none of the members were able to sign up with Harvard Model Congress. If students were not present on sign-up day, they were randomly assigned to a different group.
Next, as mentioned before, I was unable to encourage my members to request my club, Harvard Model Congress, for their Lip Dub group. As a result, no one in the Harvard Model Congress group for the lip dub was an actual member of the club. While they were all good sports and held up the club’s signs, the situation was frustrating. Many told me that they had requested different groups and would rather have been standing with them. This problem was not unique to the Harvard Model Congress club. Many students were randomly assigned to different clubs, either for being absent for sign-ups in their English classes or due to their preferred group being full. This frustrated many students, causing some to simply ditch school during filming. Students should have had the ability to switch groups or simply have had the option to switch into a large class group. While some groups may have been small under this plan, they would have accurately represented Aragon’s clubs. While I appreciate why leadership wanted a minimum number of people per club, I believe that they could have been more flexible.
The Lip Dub is intended to demonstrate that Aragon students are spirited and involved; however, I would argue that that is not its only purpose. The Lip Dub is also a tool for Aragon to advertise itself and recruit incoming freshmen. The random placement makes it appear that students are far more involved in clubs and sports than they really are; it inaccurately represents the membership of many clubs. When I saw the Feb. 2016 Lip Dub on the local news as an 8th grader it made Aragon look cool and exciting. While it wasn’t my definitive motivator for choosing Aragon, it is likely that the Lip Dubs over the years have helped recruit students for Aragon.
The Lip Dub was also expensive, costing approximately $1,000 according to Leadership. This money could otherwise have been used for other purposes that help Aragon students directly, such as providing grants to school clubs or purchasing new equipment for our sports teams. It was also costly in terms of time, taking up over an hour of the day, something that is particularly concerning since fall finals are fast approaching. In the months leading up to the filming, many leadership students, teachers and club officers also spent many hours preparing for the event. These people deserved a better organized lip dub.
I appreciate that a great deal of hard work was put into this year’s Lip Dub and that it is important to many students. Therefore, I don’t believe that Lip Dub should be ended, but it requires change. Planning should be done further in advance to ensure that club officers receive consistent information throughout the year. Students should be allowed to stand with who they want and should be given more opportunities to select a group. There should also be mechanisms in place for students to change their group. Cost-cutting should be pursued, and while it is impossible to prevent students from missing class, the Lip dub should be filmed at a different time of year that is not so close to finals.
