Two weeks after the team naming contest was announced, the principal makes a new announcement on Monday morning:
"The voting period of the contest will not open until the end of the first period, especially since the cellphones must be handed over at the front of the classroom at the beginning of a period. However, the voting period of the contest will start as soon as the bell of the first period ends. The voting period ends at the end of the week" Glen announces over the PA system. "And I'm amazed by the quality of what has been submitted as well as the sheer number of submissions received"
He then turns to his secretary's desk, waiting for the moment where she processes all the tardy students (there's always one or two on Monday morning) for tallying their violations. Once his secretary is done with the tardy students, he checks on the webpage to ensure that all entries are anonymous and don't have the names of their submitters. After all, some potential voters could be influenced by the identity of the submitters.
"A lot of these entries make me laugh. However, some of these are so outlandish they make me want to scream" Glen then laughs with the submissions, sorted in alphabetical order on the webpage created by the secretary.
"Speaking of the team naming contest... there's someone who interrupted the teacher in class because of it" the secretary then hands over the accused student to the principal.
The principal could tell the student sent to his office was a little too excited about the contest voting period opening. So many good options, such as the Fighting Servers and the Venomous Agendas... and a few dark horses from others.
"Mr. principal, I caught this student interrupting my class. He kept jabbering about who to support and who not to support in the team-naming contest, as if this team-naming contest is a game of thrones" a language arts teacher explains what happened to the freshman that teacher brought to the office for disciplinary action.
"I understand you're passionate about this contest, and it's your first offense for the year, but the rules are the rules" Glen sternly stares down the soon-to-be-punished student. "You're going to detention after school!"
That teacher talking about the team-naming contest as a game of thrones among students reminds me of the decisions my predecessor made that were forced by the pandemic. Disbanding of after-school clubs, and removal of class rank. The former because life in after-school clubs started feeling more like a game of thrones, the latter because the pandemic's stresses were already bad enough as they were without class rank getting in the way. My predecessor might have prioritized athletics more than I did, but removing class rank made him not completely bad to my eyes, Glen muses while the student is getting a letter informing him of his detention, the reason, time and place. He also proceeds to call the student's parent listed on the emergency contact list as it relates to that student.
"I regret to inform you that your son is in detention after school today" Glen informs the parent of the freshman being punished.
"What did my son do?" the puzzled parent asks him.
"He repeatedly interrupted the social studies class over this team-naming contest, and he kept discussing the merits of those entries he knew, including but not limited to his own"
"I could never have believed... my son could do such a thing for the naming contest!" the parent is taken aback by what the kid did to get in detention.
"Your son is an entrant, so he deserves to remain in the contest just like everyone else who played by the contest's rules. "But the contest's stakes don't excuse his behavior, nor his passion for it, and he broke school rules. Pick up your child once his detention ends"
That particular student's entry, the Nacho Royals, feature a crown made up of orange and beige triangular nachos. He quickly realizes that the team-naming contest is all the student body talks about. After all, the result of this contest will determine their school's identity going forward, especially for the non-seniors. But also those seniors who know will remain in town after graduation, in which case they will hear about the new team name for a while. And maybe for the rest of their lives.
Because, while it might pain Glen to admit it, the town's sociocultural life revolves around the high school, be it music, theater or sports. Or even academic competitions but they tended to fly under the population's radar. Of course, parents and other town residents are given the opportunity to vote on the contest as soon as it goes live.
Once the contest's voting period goes live, students waste no time casting their votes and sharing the voting page on their social media pages so that even their out-of-town friends can vote as well. Sometimes even their parents will vote whenever they have a chance to do so. What the principal does not realize is that the students' actions lead the contest to be known to people well beyond the zone students at this school are drawn from. And beyond the parish as well. And possibly donations to be made from without, too.
At the end of the recess, where there wasn't that many people from outside the school that had the opportunity to act upon the contest, it looked like there are three frontrunners, the Fighting Servers, Nacho Royals, and Venomous Agendas in alphabetical order, with neither of these dominating between each other, but clearly much more dominant compared to the rest of the field. Most entries struggled to get more than a few votes.
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When Glen returns home later that day, Dexter shows him the Instagram and Reddit feeds related to this contest, and how they appear to be dominated by one specific entry. Around the dinner table that night:
"Mom, dad, looks like our team naming contest has gone viral on the Web!" Dexter points out the memes circulating around that specific entry, on Instagram and on Reddit respectively.
"Venomous... Agendas?" Valerie gasps, upon seeing the meme that went viral. "Who submitted the entry?"
"There's a comment stating the difference between poisonous and venomous right here on that Reddit thread" Selena points out upon reading the Reddit thread about the Venomous Agendas logo meme.
"The contest winner is due to be announced on Friday next week. Memes have a very short shelf life online, hopefully by then the virality will have subsided" Glen comments on the contest's timeline, and later checking on the poll's results. "Unfortunately, to preserve the integrity of the contest, I will not disclose the identity of the submitter"
Basically, poisonous is about when you bite the poison, whereas venomous is when something bites the poison into you, Selena then reads the comment on the difference between poisonous and venomous, with the comment's writer then stating that it really should have been the Poisonous Agendas rather than the Venomous Agendas. And the responses to that comment seemed to imply the school has poor academic performance, at least in science, and might well be underperforming because of a lack of funds.
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"Welp, there's no denying that Venomous Agendas is a catchy name, catchy enough for memes anyhow" Dexter grumbles, while even his father is oblivious to there actually being any donations for the time being.
"This entry sure is divisive: on the one hand, some people praise our originality, on the other you have people who claim we try too hard or have issues" Selena summarizes how the memetic coverage of the Venomous Agendas entry makes her feel. She then brings herself to see the poll results as of now. "This is a one-sided contest now! How could people on the Web somehow vote for a name like the Venomous Agendas?" Selena then gasps.
"What do you mean? The virality of this meme can't be disputed all right, but do you know what this means?" Glen asks his children.
"Kinda? Maybe people from well outside the parish could have voted for it without us knowing?" Valerie asks her family, unsure of how the others will react.
"It means the team name is no longer a reflection of our community, even though the name originated from within the school's student body. However, our town is virtually unknown outside of southwest Louisiana so we are getting some attention for once" Glen tells his family. "I was unprepared for this, but I wonder whether I should continue with the contest as originally planned, or just disqualify the Venomous Agendas entry"
It's tough. On the one hand, our student body worked so hard, poured their hearts and souls into these entries, and they deserve this opportunity to shape their school environment. On the other hand, because of the actions of the student body, over which I have no control, the only real power I have remaining would be to disqualify the Venomous Agendas entry, even though that name no longer reflects the local community's wishes, Glen reflects on the dilemma he feels he is facing. That, even though he knew that not only the town's sociocultural life, and maybe even a significant chunk of its identity along with it, is tied with the school. That said, he realizes that he might get unwanted attention if the Venomous Agendas entry is disqualified, and it would create even more issues. He already had enough issues to deal with even without the implications of the team name contest.
"I admit our hands are tied, but it's obvious that we can't have it any other way, unless we luck out and have two or more entries that prove viral the way the Venomous Agendas have been. There's definitely a luck factor in what makes, well, anything go viral in our situation" Dexter replies to his father. "Think about it: the name Venomous Agendas will uniquely identify us to the rest of the state and maybe even the rest of the world"
I'd really love to go on a date with my beloved Julie, the girl's soccer team's goalie, with whom I am on the band, but she is quarantined. So I gave her all the assignments by email, as well as the team naming contest link, Dexter muses while he receives a text message from Julie, his girlfriend, regarding practice ACT questions.
"I guess, this is a foregone conclusion, but the voting period will end as scheduled" Glen tells his family.
"One more thing: what would the results of this naming contest imply for academic teams? Such as the debate team" Dexter asks his father.
"The debate team will be authorized to use the new name in tournaments, starting next week, and so will the mathletics team"
The rest of the family fans out to their respective rooms, and Dexter is making his research for his first debate tournament, to be held online. He settles on playing Congressional debating, unlike Florence, who plays public forum alongside a senior player. Dexter doesn't expect much of the team, not when they're novices and are up against much more experienced opponents.
The mathletics team currently participates in one competition, the AMC (American Mathematics Competitions) series, and only one player actually made it to the second round of the series, the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination). Éliane.
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The following day, Glen checks on the balance of the account set up specifically for donations during the team naming contest period, hoping that some voters might have donated some cash alongside their votes. Mostly small amounts, with the vast majority not exceeding $100.
Not the most exciting thing in the world, nor enough to make up for the backlog in instructional materials. But certainly enough to make a dent into said backlog.
"This is crazy! Yesterday morning it was a three-way race, now it's a one-way race, and we collected about twenty grand!" an elated Glen announces in front of his secretary upon seeing the amount of money this viral meme brought in at school.
"Just wait until the voting period ends to spend it" the secretary warns him, even though he knows what to spend it on.
"Even though everyone and their dogs here know what the team name will be from next season onward, I must follow proper procedures and not to announce it officially until the closing time of the voting period" Glen retorts to the secretary. "Better not count the eggs before they hatch. That said, the school board will approve the name change because the whole point of even having a voting period in the team naming contest was to placate the school board so they can see the population approves the name change!"
And, of course, new school merchandise would be put for sale once the contest ends, but for some reason the principal can't seem to place any kind of estimate on how much money he'd expect the replacement in school apparel to bring in.
Whatever money we make from school merchandise changing from Bulldog white-and-maroon to Venomous Agenda purple-and-green, will be applied to fund the stuff that our kids need most before next year's budget takes effect. However, it's trickier to change textbooks midway through a year than it is to buy and install specialized resources such as lab equipment, Glen muses while he knows better than to keep his hopes up regarding merchandise sales. Yet he knew lab equipment was insufficient for all scientific subjects taught here. For years, there just were experiments the students couldn't perform... and that hurt their motivation and achievement in science subjects.
Once the reality of the first day's virality sets in, Glen decides to spend the rest of the week focusing on making the purchases he feels are necessary. He does so that on Friday, the soon-to-be Venomous Agendas will actually see action taken by the principal on top of the announcement of the new team name, which by then will come to no surprise to no one.
The debate team's budget, $1500, is already set aside for the year, and they expect the bulk of it to be spent on attending the state championship(s), held in person.
Then the remainder comes in for catching up on the maintenance backlog for the band's musical instruments so that the instruments can be sent for maintenance over the weekend, and all told there is still some cash left over to buy new lab equipment. He must do so from a list of pre-approved suppliers given to him by the parish superintendent. The cold, hard truth is that even though the athletic cuts are announced, the only cut that has actually been effected was in the areas of off-season football camps and clinics since the money for these hasn't been spent when the cuts were announced; all other cuts will be effective next season, Glen keeps musing as he entered the donations as of the beginning of the day into the school's accounting system as unrestricted donations.
In the end, after everything is said and done, there isn't a whole lot of money left for replacing the textbooks, so every new dollar so raised by either merchandise sales or donations will go towards that objective for the year. But Monday proved the most productive day for online donations.
On Friday afternoon, as the final period is about to end, Glen speaks once more in the PA system:
"Even though, by now, the new school team name is known to everyone and their dogs in the student body, knowing the school board, which you probably realize is mostly a rubber stamp for decisions regarding school management, there is another announcement to make. Dear Venomous Agendas, in the coming weeks, we will take delivery of, and install, new laboratory equipment, as well as make repairs to the musical instruments for the band's usage, thanks to the money raised during the team naming contest! Finally, you will be able to perform real experiments in science classes!"
The student body will finally have an extra reason to show up to class on days where science courses are scheduled for them: a chance to learn science hands-on and, hopefully designed to relate the material to the real world. Or at least to how it's used in practice; that's what the school board intended.
Speaking of school board, the board asked Glen's predecessor to bring science labs to operational status until the end of the year, and there seemed to be no money to do so until now. Because he showed the board the invoices of the lab equipment, at the board meeting that night, alongside the result of the team naming contest, he was able to get approval for the team name change to Venomous Agendas, and unanimously. The name change takes place effective immediately for academic and artistic teams, at the beginning of the next school year for athletic teams.