Life can be pretty challenging and especially for high school students. Kids face new challenges everyday. How do you combat those challenges and help those kids? SPOTS is here to save the day!

SPOTS (Students Performing On Tough Situations) was created as a way for students to talk to other students about a number hard topics like depression and suicide for older students and bullying and making friends for the younger students.

In an interview with Mr. Rieke, the SPOTS administrator, he said that the hardest skits for the students to perform and the audience to watch are “All About Sex” and “Dating Abuse.” The students become uncomfortable performing these skits but power through because, as Rieke says, “If just one person is touched by a scene, then it’s worth it.”

Celia Fluegge

The way SPOTS works is the older kids helping the younger ones, whether it’s the older ones doing a skit for the younger kids or the veteran SPOTS students showing the ropes to the new members. “The most important thing is that students don’t feel alone,” said Mr. Rieke.

Rieke was asked what skit gets the audience the most emotional and he said that “Mad World,” a skit about an individual struggling with depression, is always a tear jerker. This individual may be depressed because of the constant bullying shown throughout the skit or maybe chemicals being off in the brain. It is unclear what is the cause, but this  makes it relatable to more people. Rieke said, “Most of our scenes are relatable because they are made by people with similar experiences and understandings.”

New SPOTS members are gained by having skits shown to the younger kids. They can talk to the older kids they look up to and see if this would be something they would like to do themselves. Mr. Rieke said that all the SPOTS kids are different, but that “they all have one thing in common: they truly want to help people.”