AHS Student Council to host prom amidst pandemic

By Clay Boeninger

After last year’s prom was canceled due to COVID-19, the junior Student Council and AHS administration are working to host their first pandemic prom.

Our health department at that point said [we] can hold a prom and so all the local school districts agreed; we’re going to do this.”

Chad Springer, the principal of Athens High School, said that recent guidance from Gov. DeWine helped push AHS towards holding a prom. “It really affirmed all of the local school districts at that point,” Springer said.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s dance will look a little different. Instead of the large cluster of students in the center of the room, colloquially known as the “grind circle,” students will be required to space themselves out into groups of ten or fewer.

Springer said that while this decision is primarily based on limiting potential COVID-19 spread, he would like to see dances move away from these masses of party-goers in the future. “That’s bad practice anyway,” Springer said. “Long term, we won’t have that cluster dancing in the middle.”

To enforce social distancing measures, school administrators and prom chaperones will break up clusters of people when necessary. Moreover, Springer is committed to halting the festivities if large numbers of students are not following the rules. “If we have a large congregation, and we know this is going to happen, where we have dancing and that cluster starts happening at the center, I will stop the dance,” Springer said.

Students will not have to provide proof of vaccination, nor will they have to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test to enter, according to Springer. Instead, Springer hopes to employ a “self-monitoring” strategy in which students elect to stay home if they feel ill.

Because of the pandemic, the prom venue will have a limited capacity of 300 people. However, Laura Tuljak, junior class adviser, is anticipating only around 200 students will attend. Because prom attendance has never exceeded 290 students, both Springer and Tuljak are not worried about students being left out.

The school looked into holding the prom in a different venue but could not find one that was more logistically suitable than AHS’s own McAfee Gymnasium.

“There’s been arguments to have it at the Dairy Barn, there’s been arguments to have it at the farmstead up North of us. If we do stuff like that, number one it’s cost-prohibitive, and number two those are smaller venues,” Springer said. In AHS’s gym, cost and space are not problems the school will run into.

Springer said that he felt pressure from parents who wanted to have their kids experience a high school prom. Until Gov. DeWine’s guidance came, the school was planning an outdoor Battle of the Bands to help send seniors off. When DeWine’s guidance finally did arrive, Springer knew he wanted to host a prom. Springer said, “Our health department at that point said [we] can hold a prom and so all the local school districts agreed; we’re going to do this.”