The homecoming dance, cancelled due to poor ticket sales, is still causing stress and frustration for the student council as it comes up with ways to recover from the financial loss.

According to student council co-adviser, Ms. Katherine Benin, only about 20 tickets were sold to a student body of roughly 750.

There are many processes that went into planning for the dance, including meeting with administration, getting the dance approved, arranging the DJ and purchasing decorations.

“These processes seem really simple, but they’re actually not when you’re doing it through a school setting,” said student council co-adviser, Ms. Sonia Bawa.  “A lot goes into every small process, that doesn’t seem that big. And overall, we did lose money.”

Nearly eight-hundred dollars were lost due to the DJ rental down-payment, and the decorations that have not yet been returned.  Members of student council put forth an extensive amount of effort into planning a fun night, which was unfortunately wasted.

The real challenge in planning for the dance was finding ways to attract students.  The question arose of why ticket sales were unsuccessful.

“I actually think that that’s a great question, a great question that you should ask your fellow students. When it comes down to it, it comes down to their interest in wanting to come to the dance,” said Benin.  “So it’s probably their perception of what the dance is and is not that has tainted it over the past couple of years. And it is a school function so it has to have certain rules.”

The problem was clear to one senior.

“Well, clearly, we lack in school spirit!” Beth Keefe (’16) said.

The real issue is not with the dance itself, but rather with the students’ attitudes. As expressed by Mr. John Arlotta, the lack of interest had to do with word-of-mouth.  Many students opposed the idea of attending a dance that is similar nature to last years’ “SunComing Dance,” and then they rejected the idea of this years’ dance altogether.

“For some reason the word got out that there were going to be a lot of clamps on this dance, so that it wasn’t what kids wanted,” Arlotta said.

Arlotta’s sentiment seemed to be on the mark, since the students The Glen Echo spoke to were not interested in attending.

“I wasn’t really interested in attending to begin with,” said Michael O’Hagan, a senior football player.

Many other students shared similar attitudes. Ultimately, popular opinion seemed to have the greatest effect on the ticket sales.

“I think [the ticket sales] were so unsuccessful because the senior class advocated very thoroughly that they were not attending,” Meghan O’Neill, student council president, said.  “Whether they want to believe it or not, people do follow the seniors’ lead.  In my opinion, if the seniors talked it up and a majority of the school went it could have been fun.”

“Our officers worked really hard and we’re upset about the fact that they put in this time and effort into creating something that they believed would be fun for their fellow classmates,” Benin said.

The cancellation of the dance created turmoil within the student council.  The officers are now trying to come up with methods to recoup the money that was lost.

“We’ve talked about doing a karaoke night,” Benin said.  “We’ve talked about doing a shared-profit with a restaurant—to not only raise money for student council but to also for a cause in conjunction with that”.

A meeting will be held within the next couple weeks to determine other possible fundraising ideas.