It’s your senior year, it’s the week before formal, you’re looking forward to another dance where you get to dress up and go to a school dance with your friends and boyfriend. Mind you, your boyfriend goes to a different school, which has not been an issue this year with past Holy Family events. After purchasing three dresses to try, as well as planning on how to ask your date to the dance, the deans make the announcement, “No outside kids are allowed to go”.

The preparation for this dance is all pointless now. I know I’m not the only person whose night is completely changed because of this. Homecoming was already hard to create a solid plan with conflicting dates, and who’s to say prom will be any different? By having formal, couples that don’t go to the same school don’t have to choose what school dance to go to. Instead, they can enjoy the night without missing their own schools’.

Speaking of prom, prom is not guaranteed with the uncertainty that COVID puts on future events, which is why we should be able to bring anyone to a dance that we know is for sure happening. Especially being a senior, this could be my last dance in high school and I would like to enjoy it with not only people I care about within the school but those outside of it. The class of ’22 has also lost a homecoming. With the formal, a dance where we can dress up like homecoming, we are kind of getting it back. This is a blessing no doubt; however, if you’re a senior wanting to bring someone outside of Holy Family, the dance doesn’t amount to a homecoming.

Rather than changing the rule to no outside kids, there should be a rule that only seniors can bring outside kids to dances. It’s no secret half of the senior class is in relationships with people at Holy Family. But what about the small population of the class of ’22 that is with someone from a different school? If you allow just these people to bring their outside dates, a whole grade is already happier. With such few people seeing people from other schools, it’d be easy to control allowing only vaccinated, healthy people, to come. This no-outside-kids rule also just discourages some people, like me,  from going to the dance. It’s difficult to tell your significant other, “We can do all of the pre-dance things together, dress up, eat, take pictures but you’re going to have to wait around for three hours while I go to the dance without you, but we can hang out after!”

There are also people that aren’t in a relationship but were still looking forward to bringing friends from other schools to the dance. Maggie Dooley was planning on bringing her best friend, but with the rule change, she isn’t able to and therefore isn’t going to the dance altogether.

Maggie says, “I wanted to bring my best friend to the dance because it could be the last one of the year with COVID, but now I’m not able to. I’m pretty upset about it because I wanted to enjoy this night dressed up with a friend I don’t get to see every day, but with the rule change I’m not going at all, so we’re going to have to try and find something to make up for it.”

When asked why they’re changing the rule now, Mr. Galmish said, “Because of COVID.”

I understand the school’s intention with this change. There’s a spike in COVID cases, even talk of going remote for the public schools around us, and putting the safety of students is the priority. Nonetheless, that’s what makes Holy Family so great: we are able to push through the COVID conflicts and stay in person in a safe manner. This is why I’m confused as to why kids from other schools, that are vaccinated, aren’t sick, and are following mask protocols, can’t enjoy the benefits Holy Family students get with the presence of the pandemic. If you don’t have to quarantine after being around someone that has COVID at school because you’re vaccinated, there should be no issue being around healthy kids at a fun school dance while you’re vaccinated.

By just letting the senior class bring other people, you are still managing the safety of students but also compromising and making the class of ’22 happy.