This year’s senior prom will be held on May 2, 2024, at The River View, in Occoquan Regional Park. The Prom Committee is the group helping to bring prom to life consisting of class officers, other members of the class of 2024, and multiple sponsors. 

The committee meets once per week on Wed. in the library after school. Established in late January, recruitment was facilitated through flyers posted around the school as well as through the class of 2024 Instagram. While the outreach of the group has been small it’s surprising to see how few seniors have taken the initiative in planning prom.

Currently, the prom committee has about 7-8 student members at every meeting which is concerning considering the size of the senior class. This is yet another demonstration of the need for more community, communication and involvement of seniors.

“…people are really busy, I think the fact that students are juggling so much whether they’re in IB or just staying caught up in classes,” Class Sponsor Jeffery Smith said. “in certain cases, they have responsibilities at home that are big and there are just a ton of competing interests,”. 

Prom is the last thing on everyone’s mind as we near the end of this school year but if students don’t take action in planning it, it won’t be the celebration it’s supposed to be. The Prom committee has not been advocated for enough which is part of the reason why there are so few members.

“Overall one thing that I can tell you that I’ve had to learn on the job is that mass communication is a really important part of the job…” Smith said.

As I’ve mentioned before, communication is something that is seriously lacking within our community. It’s like everything is kept a secret and you have to go on a wild goose chase to get the answers you’re looking for.

“…if I do this again at some point it’s really finding a way to streamline that communication…” Smith said.

Reaching out to the senior class through W-4 lessons, and a few flyers isn’t going to cut it. Ideally, the Prom Committee would like to have a senior class meeting where topics like expectations, ticket sales, fundraising, and even class bonding activities would be discussed.

Getting the class of 2024 all in one space may seem like a large feat but it’s been done before and we have an auditorium for a reason. At the end of the day, it falls on the students to come together and participation is the bare minimum required to build anything within the class. If the students can’t play their part, the outcome of events like prom will suffer because of that.