On the morning of Oct. 4, students from all grades gathered together to carry out the 10 year tradition of decorating the stairwells for homecoming week.

The history of homecoming decorations goes back to when hallways were decorated instead of the stairwells. According to David Plescia, a Leadership teacher, the hallways were normally decorated on Thursday night, and were assigned to each grade.

This year, the themes used to decorate the stairwells were “underdogs” for freshmen, “under construction” for sophomores, “under the sun” for juniors, and “undercover” for the senior class.

“On Thursday night we used to decorate [the hallways] starting at 6 o’clock after sports practice and every grade level got a hallway,” Plescia said. “The problem was that it would get torn down. By break, half of it, by lunch, all of it. It didn’t even last a day.”

The stairwell decoration competition has long been an opportunity for students to come together and show their school spirit, as well as get excited for homecoming week.

“I really like the sense of community I feel when working on the decorations,” sophomore Natalie Veto said. “When you work together to get something done it brings everyone together.”

The faculty tried to come up with a solution to the issues surrounding the hallway decorations, and the idea to decorate the stairwells was created, according to Plescia.

“We thought about hey, let’s try to make it better, more aesthetically pleasing and shrink the space. So we said let’s do the stairwells,” Plescia said.

The stairwell decorations stay up much longer, and are on display the homecoming week, according to Plescia.

The winner of the competition will be announced at the Homecoming Rally on Thursday, Oct. 8.