Why GHS should have a homecoming dance

For most schools, homecoming is a week-long celebration, with the homecoming game, spirit week, and other events leading up to the final event: the homecoming dance. Typically, this is a night where everyone is invited to dress their best and participate in a night of dancing and celebration, but not for Gloucester High School.

The idea of  “homecoming”, where a series of large celebrations are thrown in honor of a team’s returning game, seems to have originated around 1911 in a Missouri high school and has been prevalent in high schools across our nation ever since. From pep rallies to parades, homecoming has become an American school tradition that showcases our devotion and pride for our school. But all of those factors pale in comparison to the homecoming dance.

Often when students think of homecoming, they think of a dance.

Be honest with yourself, when you think of homecoming, don’t you immediately think of the dance? Of course, the homecoming game and spirit week are nothing to scoff at, but in terms of popularity, the dance wins by a landslide, so why does GHS not have one?

GHS hosts events and fundraisers for nearly all grades, including a sophomore dance, a junior ball, prom and the semi-formal for our seniors, and a Homecoming game and spirit week for all grades. However, our homecoming isn’t accompanied by a dance, unlike every other school, which leaves many students wondering why. 

Many students think that we don’t have a homecoming dance because of our lack of funding for such an event.

However, that’s not the case; Gloucester has celebrated homecoming for many years with a spirit week and game, and at one point, we had a dance too. Our class advisor. Mrs. Finacey remembers the school hosting homecoming dances in her earlier years of teaching at the school, but sometime around the late 80s and early 90s, they stopped. 

“We stopped having one a little while after I started working here, quite a while ago,” Finacey said. “Not enough kids were coming to them, so we stopped having them. Now we have the semi-formal dance, and kids seem to like that a lot.” 

Gloucester High School’s lack of a Homecoming dance was the work of none other than their own students’ lack of enthusiasm for such an event, with a semi- formal dance taking its place later in the school year for seniors. 

Homecoming seems to be much more popular in Southern states like Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, etc, where it seems to be more common for dozens of alumni to come and attend the local homecoming game.

Since these games are far more popular in the south, the schools receive more money from them and use said funding for large, flashy homecoming dances like the ones you see plastered all over social media. 

In northern states such as our home state of Massachusetts, homecoming isn’t as big a deal and is treated as such. Not as many alumni come to our games, and our school doesn’t take its sports teams as seriously as some other schools do, which possibly contributed to the lack of enthusiasm for a homecoming dance with Gloucester High School’s old students.

But have times changed? Homecoming dances have skyrocketed in popularity since then due to their portrayals in movies and on social media, and many GHS students are in favor of having a Homecoming dance once more. 

Some nearby schools, such as Essex Tech, Salem High, and Lowell High School, do host homecoming dances every fall. These Schools utilize fundraising opportunities outside of just their football games for their homecoming dances, including bake sales, restaurant collaborations, spirit merchandise, raffles, etc. These types of fundraisers are all options available to us at GHS, and could be utilized if we wish to host a Homecoming dance.

School dances provide opportunities for students to come together, bond with one another, dress up, celebrate school spirit, and provide an event for students to look forward to. The early fall months are typically uneventful in terms of holidays. Other than Halloween, there’s barely anything to look forward to. Sure, seniors can look forward to the semi formal dance, but there’s nothing for the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes. Gloucester High School implementing a homecoming dance could drastically improve student morale.

Many students in Gloucester High School, including myself, are passionate about implementing a dance into our usual homecoming celebrations, so I say we at least take the idea into consideration next year when planning our homecoming celebrations. Considering the number of students this would appeal to, many students would likely be willing to participate in fundraisers to raise money for the event.

Ultimately, it is an idea with few downsides. If we fail to raise enough money for the event, we simply use the funds for other school dances and events, but if we can pull it off, it will gain the appreciation of many students and turn into a fun night to remember.