School dances are a significant part of high school experiences. School dances like homecoming, prom, sadies, and winter formals are for students to make a better sense of themselves and the environment. School dances are made to create fantastic memories for teenagers. Malik Hancuff, a Student Body Officer at Kearns High School, stated that it would help the students get more involved with the school and have pride in our school dances. What can high schools do to help students experience an exciting social event?
We interviewed some students to see what they thought about the dances and what we could do to make them better, regarding the planning, the themes, and the culture desired at these dances. Here are their responses:
One of the main parts of planning a school dance is coming up with a theme. Both teachers and students believe that we can do more and have more school involvement when coming up with these themes. They believe that this will make school dances more popular and bring a better and more fun environment to the students.
Malik Hancuff suggested a way to achieve the goal of planning and getting more input from the students, “Talk to the SBOs about it. They come up with literally everything. If they knew the student body’s concerns, maybe they would change something. Also, offer ideas to them.”
Erin Britt, a teacher at Kearns High School, agrees with this statement by saying, “Give more student input, if you want better dances, have a decent lead-in. Put out a poll on Instagram or something. Get the students invested and let them vote. They will go if they have more of an involvement.” Erin Britt suggests ways that we can do so and give students more involvement in our school dance choices by commenting, “Open up a window and say ‘we are putting suggestions, put your theme ideas here’ and choose the top 4 that they think would be the most popular.” This teacher thinks this is one of the main reasons more students aren’t going to the school dances. She explained, “We don’t get the time to prepare and we don’t do anything that excites the kids so I think that’s why they don’t go. You need to have more response from people and better responses from the student body.” Amy Alvarado, a student at Kearns High School agrees with this statement and replies, “Probably more time in advance to prepare for the dances. I feel like you don’t really hear about them until a few days before.”
Students want to see more specifically themed dances that give them a better idea of how to dress up instead of what they normally would wear. Haley Wood, a student at Kearns High School responded to the question “What other themes would you like to see at our dances?” by saying, “Themes that you can have like a themed outfit. Like under the sea, or western.” Another student named Malik Hancuff, responded to the same question by stating,
“Some themes that would be really cool would be outer space themes with neon colors and black light. I also think an under-the-sea theme would be cool. It’s very original and always has cool decorations and so many opportunities.” More suggestions that students had for prom themes included, again, Under the Sea, Winter Wonderland, A Great Gatsby, black and white, and the 90s. Some themes that Erin Britt stated that would interest her the most would be having a senior ball masquerade theme.
Malik Hancuff stated, “When we celebrate Hispanic holidays, it shows that we take pride in the diversity of our school. Our school has done a few dances to represent different cultures and they were successful.” This diversity can be inclusive to all cultures. He wants to see, “more themes representing the students’ culture and more creative ideas”, in our future dances. This is how Malik Hancuff believes we can make our dances more popular and make students feel like they can fit in better, allowing them to express themselves in their school.
All in all, students and teachers agree with each other to give students more input and allow them to be creative with the themes for better outcomes on school dances. More input from students can help them feel more connected to the school and feel like they fit in. In order to get better planning and themes for dances, preparation should take place well beforehand, giving time to students and teachers to prepare and get ready for each dance.
