During the week of November 19th, the junior and freshman classes participated in an activity that is a Montrose favorite: Josh Week. From Wednesday to Friday, the juniors anonymously gave their assigned freshman a costume to wear each day along with a task sheet that the freshman had to complete each day as well.
The theme for this year’s Josh Week was “CEOs and interns.” Each junior had one or two assigned freshman (interns) and gave their freshman certain office-like tasks in addition to silly tasks, including singing the national anthem and other songs at lunch. The interns had to wear embarrassing (but fun) costumes for each day of school. Meagan Albertson ‘16 said, “The freshman looked like they were having a lot of fun each day, wearing different costumes and performing funny things at lunch!”
The wide variety of costumes and tasks that the juniors assigned to the freshman allowed filled the week with interesting and hysterical events. Rylee Booth ‘16 said, “I had Emma Caponi, and I made her wear some weird tutu thing that I found in my closet. One of her tasks was to sing ‘Shake It Off’ with two of her friends at lunch.” Clara Cahill-Farella ‘16 said, “I had Ciara Dunn, and I made her wear a headband, a feather thing, wings and a mask. Some things that I made her do were star jumps at lunch and twirl around every time she had to answer a question in class.”
One question that I had in the beginning of Josh Week: why the juniors and the freshman? I interviewed Ella Schirripa ‘15 and obtained my answer. Elle said, “It is the freshman because they are the ones being welcomed into high school. It is the juniors because they are officially upperclassmen, meaning they are experienced high schoolers and can now welcome the newbies. We started this tradition to make something special for the freshman as they enter high school. It is also a good way to get a junior class involved as leaders. Many other schools have a similar activity where the freshmen are “initiated into high school” in a fun, light way. I think our Josh Week is crazier though!”
At the end of the week, the CEOs gathered together with their interns in the M&M building to reveal to the interns who had been joshing them throughout the week. The two classes bonded over donuts and pictures.
The freshman completed their tasks with the utmost enthusiasm and all of the juniors brought in incredible costumes for their interns to wear. I had Therese Schickel; and, at the end of the week, when I revealed to her that I was her CEO, she screamed and picked me up and spun me around. I hope that future Josh Weeks are as fun as ours was. Elle added, “I think it captures the Montrose nicely — we work hard but we always make time to have fun and remind each other not to make ourselves too serious.”