The week of Sept. 22, 2025, has been Berkeley High School's 2025-26 Unity Week, a spirited week where students dress up in school-wide themes to unite the school and show off their school spirit. Unity Week is a precursor to the homecoming football game and dance on Saturday.
Monday, Sept. 22, 2025, started the week off at 6 a.m. with Senior Sunrise at Inspiration Point, with the senior class organizing baked goods given to the sleepy-eyed students as they watched the sun rise on their senior year. As the week has progressed, students dressed in themes from the more traditional Pajama Day to more outlandish themes such as Adam Sandler Day or Jersey vs. Jersey Shore, however many seniors have dressed in their own unofficial themes such as Country vs. Country Club or Bikers vs. Surfers. Today, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, marks the end of Unity Week, with students from all grade levels dressed in red and gold, the BHS school colors.
"The purpose of Unity Week is to give students kind of a fun activity that's school sanctioned, that people can get excited about. It's not necessarily academic," Sophia Nishioka, Associated Student Body (ASB) President and BHS senior, said.
However, in past years, the Friday of Unity Week — previously called rally day due to a rally that took place on that day, now called red and gold day — has unfortunately included seniors harassing underclassmen. This can take the form of hazing such as thrown projectiles like eggs or orbeez guns, or yelling. Substance use and sexual harassment have also been common during past Unity Weeks.
"You children become very spirited during Unity Week, so a lot of people feel like the behavior is not your regular hallway behavior," Jasmina Viteskic, the BHS Title IX coordinator, said. "So the part of the reason why we closed the breezeway is also because kids would climb them up on the walls. (They would) grab, touch, (and) yell," Viteskic added. The breezeway is a narrow and often crowded hallway connecting the C and G Buildings, and is normally closed during Red and Gold day.
As a result, the lead-up to Friday has been met with varying expectations. Some students, such as BHS sophomore Nolan Howell-Cohen, have been excited to see the school unite. "Rally day is the best day," Howell-Cohen said, "Everyone comes together and they're wearing the same stuff, basically."
BHS senior Max Glater-Chacon explained that he thinks egging and fights shouldn't be a part of any BHS tradition, but that he finds Unity Week an important tradition. "The chanting seniors, the running through the halls, the wearing red, I think that's important, and I think we should work to keep that because that's like a rite of passage. Every freshman looks forward to the year where they can finally be that person who's ... chanting seniors in the hall," Glater-Chacon said.
However, some faculty, such as Theory of Knowledge and AP Art History teacher Richard Conn, worry about the treatment of students during Red and Gold day. Conn explained that he believes a real unifying week would entail students of different grades mentoring and uplifting one another, but that current hazing traditions show off students' worst traits. "It just kind of really shows me, and it shows a lot of the staff, that our efforts to make kids into thoughtful, compassionate citizens only reaches so far, right? And that at the end of the day, if people are given an excuse to have bad behavior, they're gonna take it," Conn said.
Organizations such as Green Dot have been taking steps in the weeks before Unity Week to ensure that students can safely and comfortably enjoy the week. "There have been a lot of unfortunate accidents, surrounding sexual harassment, sexual harm, essentially around Rally Day, which we (Green Dot) are in the business of stopping," Rose Levine, senior Green Dot ambassador, said. Green Dot is a two-year program that trains students to notice and deescalate incidents of bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.
In the lead-up to Unity Week, Green Dot has prepared bulletin videos for the BHS community on staying safe during the week. "(We're) pushing the message of direct, delegate, distract, like, mutual respect of all of our students, at this moment is in hopes that will stop that harm," Levine said.
Regardless of the faults of Unity Week in its current form, it remains an effort to bring fun to campus, John Villavicencio, director of student activities, explained. "The unity is part of the balance of a full on students charging through with academics, and then doing something fun. It’s (Berkeley High School’s) current form of letting students have fun on campus and bringing people together until we can create something else," Villavicencio said.
Unity Week will continue into this weekend, with the homecoming JV and varsity football games taking place tomorrow on Sat. 27 at 10 a.m. for JV and 1 p.m. for varsity. The homecoming dance will take place later that day from 7-10 at BHS.