Should the Homecoming Dance Move to Saturday?

Tis’ the season. The joyous tradition of a homecoming dance directly following the last football home game of the season is in the air. Yet, as we take a look at the different ways schools other than Weedsport go about homecoming, everyone else regards it as we do the Semi-Formal. Every girl needs a pretty dress, and everyone obsesses over elaborate homecoming proposals. Meanwhile, the folks at Weedsport have used homecoming as a sort of after-party to the football game, which causes numerous inconveniences for students.

In a recent pep-rally planning meeting, a couple of kids brought up the idea of moving the Homecoming Dance to Saturday. The topic was brought to the attention of the Athletic Director and Dean of Students, Mr. Carr. The idea proposed involved moving the date of the homecoming dance to the Saturday following the game to potentially help in the turnout of this annual event. It was later determined that this change could not be enacted this year, because of the short notice.

In theory, the setup that Weedsport has for the dance is designed so that kids could go straight from the football game to the dance to conviene with friends and have an awesome night. This is just not what people generally want to do. Anyone who has attended or played in one of these games can agree that energy levels are pretty much drained after the game, and everyone generally wants to go home to bed- certainly not dance.

As the final home game is usually midway through October, the weather can be pretty brisk, so people naturally wear a couple thick layers. Some may remember in past years how kids huddled in bathrooms after the game with frozen hands and faces, only to have to take off their numerous layers so as to avoid a heat stroke on the dance floor.

Along with this, students generally like to have a good amount of time to dress, shower, etc. before they go to a social event such as this (A little side note: it’s not that easy for girls to get ready when they can’t feel their hands).

In addition to the lack of attendance and weather issues, there is also the matter of formality that several students wish was present for the dance. In past years, only the kids nominated for the homecoming court would dress up, whilst everyone else sported thermal clothing and sneakers. Kind of a weird setup. Of course, girls can find it very stressful to get the right dress in time for the dance, so a solution proposed was to insist that students at least look nice for the dance. This proposal to dress up was seen to be a reasonable solution for students in attendance at the meeting.