School dances at Terrace tend to range from some of the biggest events of the year, to some of the smallest. While Homecoming typically has a massive turnout and most seniors jump at the chance to attend Prom, middle of the year dances like the Winter Formal and Spring Fling have had much less of a turnout.

So if so few students are attending these dances, what’s the point of still hosting them? The school dances do actually help the school in several ways and increasing school spirit, even if they don’t have as many attendees. These include the spirit weeks that proceed them, which help bring up spirit, and also include decorating the halls with the relevant themes. There are also the dances themselves, which help earn funds for various school programs. Even us at Hawkeye earn some of the funds needed to print our publications from the photo booths we host at the dances, which typically end up contributing a fairly large part of our funds after we’ve lost most of the funding we used to receive from CTE.

What causes such a low turnout in the first place? There are a few probable reasons that are all most likely contributing, but one of them is likely the most important. The amount of students that hear about these dances has plummeted as they’ve been exposed to less and less advertising, with some students not even knowing the correlated spirit weeks are happening. There is also the price of $20 for tickets if you don’t have ASB, which many students may not feel justified spending for an event that is just three hours long.

The factor that keeps most students I’ve spoken to from coming, however, is that they simply would rather stay at home than go to a dance. Students in the modern era tend to have so many methods of entertaining themselves at home (texting with friends, social media, games, art, etc.) that many don’t see the purpose in going out to a dance.

However, there are some students that absolutely love these dances. And, for those students, the dances can be opportunities to see friends they otherwise might not see or interact with at school, meet new people, and have some fun while blowing off some built-up energy.

So, for those students, these dances are absolutely worth it.