The Behind the Scenes of Wall Day

Great tips and tricks to making a successful wall!!

Suzanna Carlsten, Co Editor for Student life

March 21, 2024

Wall Day is arguably the Academic Magnet’s most interesting day in the school year. While these creations pop up overnight to many students, I am here to tell you the steps and preparation that make this day so special. And maybe, it will help you appreciate the walls and the people who create them a little bit more. You’re probably wondering, “Suzanna what do you know about Wall Day”? While I have only been president for one year I have played major roles in creating and building since our first wall freshman year. Here are some of my favorite creations that my class has made!!

Ford Martins Barbie house

The sheriff house I made junior year

Tree my dad made sophomore year

Steps to creating a wall:

Sending in themes: Wall Day themes can be quite controversial, while you may think something is great, I can promise someone will think it’s the worst idea in the world. To go about voting for a wall theme that will leave the least people upset, first create a form to send out to your class, where they submit ideas, with an explanation of how they would like this wall to be executed.
Voting on a theme: Once you have your theme submissions go through ideas, talk with your class leaders, and pick 4 themes that would best fit your class (pick themes that are dark or spooky; no one wants a super bright wall). Then, send them out to your class, and have them rank each theme from most wanted to least (ranked-choice voting). Also in your form include an area where people fill out if they would like to help build items in the weeks before or set up the day of.
Wait: Once you have your theme many think, I have three weeks, I don’t need to do anything I’m on top of everything, yay!
Panic: wait one week and realize you have nothing put together and you start panicking and realizing that you have to make another wall. While many think, “Why don’t you just plan ahead?” Surprisingly to many there’s always a lot going on, and you genuinely don’t have time.
Make your group chats: Make a group chat of everyone willing to help and participate, yay! Have them all clarify that they are willing to help and start to draw up ideas.
Raise money: Once you make your plans, DO NOT FORGET TO CHECK YOUR CLASS FUNDS. Especially in the spring, you may think you raised money from your bake sales, but sadly you most likely did not. If you don’t have enough money go around to study halls and ask for donations. This usually works and you can most of the time raise a significant amount of money!!
Place your Amazon order: Place everything you need for wall day with Ms. Knox on Amazon. Do not spend over $250 on Amazon at that point it’s wasting money, unless you know you will use it in future years. Ask around and have people bring items in.
Become a Facebook market place god: Once you realize omg wood is so expensive, take a gander to the Facebook marketplace. You will 1000% be able to find free or extremely cheap wood and supplies. For example this year for Wall Day, I spent $25 on Facebook marketplace and from that, I was able to get: a wood pallet, 5 sheets of plywood, a tarp, and wood boards. Highly highly recommend it, just make sure you don’t get kidnapped.
Divide things up: Next, you need to make sure you split up your wall among other members of your council, each takes a section and have them put in charge of getting the items for that part. For example for seniors; I am doing downstairs, my vice president is doing the stairs, and the treasurer and secretary are working upstairs. Not only does this relieve a little stress, but this also allows other people to learn how to run a wall day for future days so the stress isn’t on you for 4 years.
Build and paint: On the weekends leading up to wall day, have your before-group meet-up and work on building and painting items for the wall. I highly recommend recruiting your dad as well if he is the building type, usually, they can make things look a little less ratchet.
Get it all to school: This is what I consider the most challenging part of wall day. If you are taking a more building approach to the wall it’s pretty hard to get everything to school. Keep note of people in your grade with trucks who could possibly pick up the item from your house. Also, MAKE SURE they can take the item back or you might just have to throw it away because no one can take it home. For example for this year, I had 4 trucks, 2 crv’s, and one boat brought to school to carry everything. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Set up day of: Yay its time to build, you get from 3:30-6 to whip up an amazing wall, good luck!! Hopefully, people who said they would bring in the items they promised. While you may think I have enough people, you probably don’t and will literally be in a sprint for the next 3 hours.
5:30 wake up: Yay you’ve built your entire wall, psych!! You get to come to school the next morning, at 7 am to put the entire thing up because it all, yes all, falls overnight. Make sure you have a group of about 5 people to help rework the wall in the morning and add in final touches.
Deal with the criticism: Once school arrives, you may realize not a single positive comment is coming out of anyone’s mouth. While you did spend blood sweat and tears grinding out this wall they did not, so don’t listen to them. At the end of the day, the people who criticize are the people who didn’t help. And many don’t realize how much work really goes into the wall, so block off the haters.
Clean up with the wall: Yay wall day is over, now you have to clean everything up. Don’t forget this also takes around an hour, so you need to make sure you have people to help.

What I consider necessary to order/have

No offense to other grades but in recent years I have noticed a growth in recent years with a lack of understanding on what grades need to have or order to have a good wall.