The situation concerning dances at Grady is at a serious stage. The annual Silver Slipper Ball has been postponed due to losses on previous dances. Is Grady having too many dances? Is there just apathy or a lack of school spirit among the students? Are rising costs hurting Grady's pocketbook along with everyone else's? The truth is a little bit of all three.
There are six or seven dances between the opening of school and the end of January. After game dances football season are good if there is good attendance at the game. Generally, people who go to the game stay for the dance.
The Sadie Hawkins dance, run by the Distributive Education department, made money this year but things have gone downhill ever since. The homecoming dance made a little money but then came the Football and Christmas Dance disasters.
LOSING MONEY
In a little over two months time (end of November to near end of January),
there are three dances. In the spring there are dances for the whole student
body, and the Battle of the Bands. (Jr.-Sr. is paid for junior class, restricted
to juniors and seniors.)
One solution might be to consolidate a few of the bigger dances in the fall
and have one big dance in February. The Football Dance, which supposedly
is in honor of the football players, could be joined in with the homecoming
dance and the football players could be honored there. If no after-game
dances were held, this one dance would be one of the biggest things during
football season.
The Christmas Dance could then become the Silver Slipper with the Senior Superlatives and Cinderella and Prince Charming being named at-this dance. This would leave a void in January that could be filled by an underclassmen dance.
Many other schools in the city hold dances in which only eighth and ninth graders are allowed to attend and the end of January Would be the perfect spot for this dance.
This leaves the Twirp dance, the Battle of the Bands, and the Junior-Senior prom for the Spring, which would fill the calendar nicely.
BANDS EXPENSIVE
Student apathy is almost impossible to deal with. The idea of fewer dances
during the school year may shock some more people into coming, Big name
bands may also draw a crowd -- which leads into problem three.
The rising costs of bands and rooms creates havoc in budgets set for dances. The idea of having a disc jockey come out and play records is not too "queer." The student must realize that tickets would be cheaper with disc jockey playing records, he would not have to worry about a band playing bad music, and the breaks the band usually takes would be cut in half. The D. J. idea is one that needs to be looked into by some enterprising organization.
This dance mess has to be cleared up by next year. Student Council should take it upon itself to investigate, rearrange, and just literally try and solve this major problem. If Student Council can do this, it will be the most worthwhile thing any Student Council has done for this school.