SuperFanU is an organization that created an app among several colleges to compel students to be a part of something bigger than just belonging to a school. Ripon High School’s SuperFan allows students to gain points by attending school activities such as dances and football games.

Mr. Wright, a co-leader states, “I ran into them at a conference about two years ago, and the concept of it was very interesting.” After purchasing the program, Wright altered it to meet Ripon High School’s standards.

The idea is that the student body will want to attend more sporting events and out-of-school activities to become more spirited because of what the app has to offer. SuperFan is on a point-based system, where if students decide to support Ripon High by attending a football game, they will receive points. If students gain enough points, they can start exchanging their points for prizes.

“Title prizes are coming out, but we’re still in the process of putting it all together. You’ll be able to take your rewarded points and buy Mr. Rangel’s parking spot for two days or other little knicks and knacks like that,” Wright stated. Attending dances and sporting events are not the only ways to receive points.

“For our first football game, we sent a message to only the people at the football game […] there was actually a poll, asking what the final score of the varsity game was. If they got it right, then they got two bonus points,” Mrs. Pendleton, also a co-leader, stated.

However, there have been a few misconceptions about the app. Students were concerned because it seemed that only spectator sports were getting points for attending their own games instead of all sports.

“I talked to the [golf] coaches and they said it probably wasn’t good for golf; kids might freak out because they aren’t used to having more than just a couple people watch them. But Cross Country and all the rest of the sports will be on it,” said Wright. This is still a new concept, so the app has been having a check-in issue that students are also concerned about.

“There’s a problem with some of the phones, for whatever reason, it’s like they’re loading and they don’t get the option to check-in. However, if they can prove that they were there, either by uploading a picture, having a picture taken of them, or if one of us sees them and they let us know, we can add points for them,” Pendleton adds.

Wright is hoping to get prizes up and allow students to start exchanging points for prizes in the next couple of weeks. When asked about the rumors of SuperFan replacing Remind, Wright stated, “Yes, I believe it will happen before the end of the year, we’re hoping, but we have to get everybody on board first.”