Appropriate Dance Reform

When discontented students emptied the gym by 10:45 p.m. on the Homecoming dance night of October 23, 2009, the appropriate dance policy conflict once again resurfaced at Albany High School. Despite the efforts to establish and streamline concise dance regulations before and during the 2008-2009 school year, the “miscommunication” between students and administrators on appropriate dancing is now more evident than ever.

After Leadership issued another dance survey in November 2009, student responses largely reflected opposition to dance rules and resentment towards the administration for having removed many students from the Homecoming dance.

“We spent a lot of time going over these rules last year via the PTSA, the freak dancing task force committee – and we came up with very specific regulations,” Principal Ted Barone said on October 30, during a meeting with Leadership.

“Inappropriate dancing isn’t just breaking a school rule; it’s breaking a collaborative agreement, something that parents and students all worked to put together. I want to enforce the agreements that we made collaboratively,” Barone said.

According to Assistant Principal Tami Benau, students who broke rules were not misinformed and were being willingly defiant: “Every student dancing inappropriately straightened up as soon as I approached them. The students dancing upright and appropriately didn’t stop when I walked closer because they knew that what they were doing was okay. Every student I’ve talked to [besides some freshmen] knew perfectly well what they were doing.”

The appropriate dance survey results supported Ms. Benau’s conclusion, with only 14% of surveyed students reporting that they were unclear on what the rules were.

Regardless of however they interpret the legitimacy of the current dance rules, students are expected to follow the dance agreement form that they sign prior to purchasing a dance ticket. Even though many students do feel perfectly comfortable with dancing in an explicit manner, it does not entitle them to be able to do so at a public event.

Administrators at Albany High understand that we are teenagers, and they do not in any way try to advocate against consensual teenage sexual activity with their point of view in the appropriate dance debate. But there are limitations by law to the level of sexual activity that students are permitted at a school event. To host a dance on school grounds with no regulations and no chaperones would spell out a major disaster for safety.

While the student opinion is indispensible, it is crucial that we do not forget the other side of the story – as told by our administrators. When the opinions of our peers appear to be on one extreme of the concern, it is too easy for us to misidentify and denounce any contrasting perspective as false.

The Administration may be preventing students from enjoying themselves to their full extent at dances, but their good intentions are justified. The current gale of anti-administration propaganda needs to be put to an end.

2 Responses

1. 11:06 PM on February 11th, 2010Chuuuuu:

   I personally don’t think the “propaganda” should be ended til the issue and others are truly solved, or reason enough to prove the converse is provided.

2. 12:52 AM on June 7th, 2010Pit Bull:

   damnnnnn is it that wrong to wanna bend a beezy over?

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