Pumpkin Day is one of the most special days of the Marlborough school year. The costume parade is eagerly anticipated by students as they dress up alongside staculty to display their costumes in front of the community. 

Before the event, staculty members spend weeks coordinating costumes within their departments. Along with good spirits, comes a high level of competition between departments as only three groups will place in the highly praised competition.

“We take it very seriously,” Mathematics Instructor Deepender Singh said. “We prepare. We want to put on a good show. We want students to applaud.”

The parade is taken thoughtfully as the winning costumes from each year are always remembered by students and teachers. In 2022, the Visual Arts Department won for their re-creation of the “Friends” theme song, and in 2023, the History Department won for dressing up as the Taylor Swift eras.

The Mathematics Department does not take the parade lightly. They start brainstorming ideas at the very beginning of the school year during their weekly lunch meetings and later make their final decision by an informal majority vote.

Unlike other departments, the Mathematics Department always relates their costume to math. Last year, they dressed up as Power Rangers to represent powers in math, and the preceding year they were cow-culators. Their math-themed costumes seem to engage the students and make math more exciting.

“Sometimes [a math concept] is something a student hasn’t taken before,” said Singh. “When they see it in class it’s a point of conversation because the Math Department did it for Pumpkin Day.”

All in all, the friendly competition that takes place and the long planning process make the Marlborough community more invested in the procedure.

“It’s a long but fun process. It’s one of my favorite parts of Marlborough. Pumpkin Day is a fun time at Marlborough,” Singh said.