Dancing in the Cafeteria? A True High School Musical Moment

The opening school assembly was filled with laughs, sighs, snores, and some occasional snarls. However, students sat up in their chairs when they heard the announcement that the highly anticipated homecoming dance was to be held in the cafeteria. Who made this decision? This may remain an unsolved mystery.

Mr. Delporto, our school's athletic and activities director, stated that he had nothing to do with the decision. If the school's director of this sort of thing had nothing to do with it, then who would? I continued my search.

My next stop was Mr. Beisel. In short, he told me that the dance studio was way too unstable to hold around 750 people. As many students know already, a couple of years ago the ceiling in the weight room caved in during the homecoming dance. Needless to say, this was and still is a safety issue. So, this information helped a little, but still the question remained: whose call was this?

I decided that if no one else, our new principal Mr. Bartman would know. So I headed on down to his surf inspired office and took a seat ready with some questions. But apparently I was wrong and the decision was made prior to his arrival. But he did shed some nice light on the subject. Everyone is complaining about having the dance in the cafeteria, but is it really going to be that bad? "The cafeteria is the only place with central air conditioning so I don't see why students are complaining." Mr. Bartman told me. It's true, the dance studio gets so hot and it might be nice to dance without the dewy, or as some might say "reduce the sweat factor".

Still, it doesn't seem like the cafeteria is going to be able to meet students' standards. " This isn't High School Musical. The cafeteria is a place for eating not a place for dancing." stated sophomore Mikelle Mancini after hearing the news. Mancini is not the only one upset about this change. Students from each grade are questioning the reasons behind this recent switch and a question on many students' lips is " why not the gym?" The gym is considered a very important place to some people at our school and for good reasons. But isn't the dance studio just as important? In the past the dance studio's floor has had to suffer from 4-inch stilettos clanking on its panels but no one seemed to notice. Now that the dance studio is out of the question, maybe it is a time to compromise. We all want what's is best for our school but, sometimes it seems as if no one really knows what's best. There seems to be nothing that we as a student body can do except show up and have a good time.

-by Cricket Oles