By Diana Arutyunyan
Despite the return of on-campus activities such as clubs, academic teams, and sports, students received emails that Homecoming would be postponed until next semester due to Covid.
Homecoming is one of the most exciting parts of the fall semester as the first dance of the year where students can dress up and see each other outside of a traditional school environment. However, this year, the administration decided to push back Homecoming even after the theme was announced.
Although many restrictions have been lifted, Covid continues to spread, making it difficult to stay completely safe, especially in a school with close to 5,000 students. However, the school has worked together to fairly successfully prevent the virus from spreading, so cancelling Homecoming seems to not make sense.
Let’s be honest: nobody truly follows the social distancing mandate because it is physically impossible to stay six feet apart at all times. Students also continue to touch each other and walk shoulder to shoulder in the hallways.
Moreover, nutrition and lunch with a school as populous as ours remain crowded. Students spend their time with friends with their masks off. Lunch lasts thirty minutes, which is plenty of time for students to come in contact with each other.
At lunch, it is also a common sight to see students sharing food and drinks, talking face to face, and couples embraced in each other’s arms.
With this being said, is it truly necessary to cancel the Homecoming dance, which would have fewer students than during the school day?
While the window to purchase tickets is short, according to student store manager Mayra Alapizco, the number of tickets sold for the 2019 Homecoming was 1029. Only 1029. Compared to the 5,000 students that are on campus each day, the conditions seem easier to follow socially distance guidelines.
People can wear masks, social distance, and enjoy their time, especially if the Homecoming dance was being held outdoors as it has been in the past.
This kind of event is important to build core memories in high school, especially since seniors have not had many opportunities to attend school events due to the pandemic.
“I felt kind of bummed to hear that Homecoming was postponed until next semester and think it should be done this semester. Yes, I did plan on going but now I don’t know if I will if it is still planned to be next semester,” senior Stella Aguilar said.
Administration has been working very hard to prevent the spread of germs and allow students to be back on campus and enjoy extracurricular activities. However, it seems that with all those rules and guidelines that make it possible for us to be on campus, Homecoming should be available as well.
We’ll have to hope that the dance will just be that much more successful next semester.
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