WOODBURY — As the new school year kicks off at Nonnewaug High School, students and teachers have been faced with a similar situation: the rush to prepare for the fall’s biggest dance, homecoming.
“It’s so early,” said senior Finn Jones. “For me, homecoming is like a break and it feels too early for a break. We don’t need it just yet.”
Nonnewaug’s homecoming dance is a whole month earlier this year, a step up from Oct. 20 of last year.
Sophie Solury, a senior at NHS, feels like she was very rushed.
“The fact that we’re three weeks in and I’m already drowned in schoolwork doesn’t help,” Solury said. “All of my time is dedicated to studying and I’ve had no time to go to the mall and get a dress.”
Nonnewaug students were bombarded with permission slips, having only a week to get them signed, and for a lot of upperclassmen, getting their guest permission slips in.
At first, the original policy was to allow only seniors to bring guests to homecoming.
“School spirit is so high and I’m excited because of that,” assistant principal Declan Curtin says. “We’re selling out the venue. It all comes down to numbers. And we are not allowed to have more than 450 at the site.”
The rule has since changed, and juniors are now allowed to bring guests. However, many junior students at Nonnewaug were scrambling to turn in guest slips .
“I didn’t care much at first but with homecoming being so soon, I thought it was unfair that we barely had two days to even get guests to come with us,” NHS junior Addison Neilson says. “I would’ve been more okay with it if they had extended the deadline for guests until after that weekend.”
While the rule has since been changed and juniors are now allowed to bring guests, underclassmen are now buzzing with questions.
“I think it should be a shared opportunity for everyone to enjoy because it makes it way more enjoyable,” NHS sophomore Zinnia Marcus said.
Homecoming organizer and NHS science teacher Joshua Kornblut has had many underclassmen question why they can’t bring guests.
“I’ve had many ask and many are a little disappointed but I also think most students are willing to have a conversation and understand the thinking behind it,” Kornblut says. “But they of course wish it was a little different.”
However, there is a good reason for this restriction.
“The reason they cannot is mostly because of capacity. We like to give upperclassmen [the] first chance because it might be their last homecoming,” Kornblut said. “Freshmen and sophomores will have those opportunities in the future but we want to make sure that upperclassmen have that first availability and we want to make sure that Nonnewaug students in general have the first chance at buying tickets.”
Administrators stress that underclassmen will be able to bring guests in the future, just not now.
“We want to be all inclusive for everybody and we have to make some difficult decisions and eventually the underclassmen are gonna have those privileges,” Curtin says. “There’s 378 tickets sold already. The venue only holds 450. We actually put a cap today on the website because we’re afraid we’re gonna go over that number.”
